Trump threatens to take ICE out of California

SAN DIEGO — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he may pull the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency out of California, an idea so unlikely that some of his staunchest critics dismissed it.

Withdrawing ICE runs counter to Trump’s record of dramatically increasing deportation arrests and pledging to beef up the agency with an additional 10,000 employees. The administration has been threatening more — not less — immigration enforcement in California in response to a new state law that sharply limits cooperation with federal authorities.

The president’s suggestion was his latest statement to pressure so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, which the administration claims are a magnet for immigrants who commit crimes.

“Frankly, if I wanted to pull our people from California you would have a crime nest like you’ve never seen in California,” Trump said at the White House.

“If we ever pulled our ICE out, and we ever said, ‘Hey, let California alone, let them figure it out for themselves,’ in two months they’d be begging for us to come back.”

Trump also said his administration has targeted members of the violent MS-13 gang but has been “getting no help from the state of California.” Whitaker’s father, Kent, who also was shot in the 2003 plot at the family’s suburban Houston home, led the effort to save his son from execution. Abbott commuted the sentence to life without parole. after the crash and remain in critical condition.