House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she told President Donald Trump on the phone last week that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation raids that were scheduled for Sundaywere “scaring the children.”
“When I spoke to the President, I said ‘Look, I’m a mom, I have five kids, seven, nine grandchildren and children are scared,'” Pelosi said at an event in New York hosted by Democratic Rep. Grace Meng. “You’re scaring the children of America, not just in those families but their neighbors and their communities. You’re scaring the children.”
CNN’s Jake Tapperreported over the weekendthat Trump and Pelosi spoke at 7:20 p.m. ET Friday night for about 12 minutes, according to a source familiar with the call. Trump announced Saturday that he’s delaying for two weeks the raidsthat were planned to take place in 10 major US cities, saying deportations will proceed unless Congress finds a solution on the US-Mexico border.
“I mean it’s so appalling,” Pelosi said Monday, recalling when she first heard about the planned raids. “It’s outside the circle of civilized human behavior, to just be kicking down doors, splitting up families and the rest of that.”
Though both the House and the Senate are expected to take up border funding bills this week, there are differences in them that — if they both pass — would need to be reconciled. Also, neither bill includes changes to the immigration or asylum policy, one of the President’s demands. The Senate is expected to take up the $4.5 billion border supplemental that passed overwhelmingly out of the Appropriations Committee last week.
