The White House actually sought a cost estimate for Trump's alligator-filled border moat, officials say


President Trump's current harder-line immigration polices, and the precursory purge at the Homeland Security Department, began with a two-hour meeting in March during which Trump ordered top officials to close down the entire U.S-Mexico border by noon the next day, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing more than a dozen Trump administration officials directly involved in that week's events. Trump's staff eventually talked him down, "but the people who tried to restrain him have largely been replaced," and "his threat to seal off the country from a flood of immigrants remains active," the Times reports.
But Trump's other ideas for sealing off the border were equally or more extreme, and some of them got surprisingly far, the Times reports:
Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That's not allowed either, they told him. [The New York Times]
"There is nothing funny about" threatening to shoot or maim migrants, Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan tweeted. The alligator-filled border moat has been used to mock immigration hard-liners, however.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"They're going to say we need to quadruple the border patrol, or they'll want a higher fence," President Barack Obama said in a speech in El Paso in 2011. "Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied. I understand. That's politics."
Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, also joked about putting alligators at the border wall to Fox News host Sean Hannity in 2011. Some fellow Republicans are bragging they're "gonna build a double fence, we're going to put alligators between it, and we're going to put lava in there, as well," Perry said, railing against a wall.
As far as we know, Trump hasn't yet suggested lava.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
Some mainstream Democrats struggle with Zohran Mamdani's surprise win
TALKING POINT To embrace or not embrace? A party in transition grapples with a rising star ready to buck political norms and energize a new generation.
-
How to make music part of your vacation
Let the rhythm move you
-
What is credit card churning and why is it risky?
the explainer Churners frequently open new credit cards with the intent of earning a welcome bonus and accessing other perks
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custody
Speed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulings
Speed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible
-
Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood funds
Speed Read The court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot sue South Carolina over the state's effort to deny it funding
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat gone
Speed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
-
Trump embraces NATO after budget vow, charm offensive
Speed Read The president reversed course on his longstanding skepticism of the trans-Atlantic military alliance
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer says
Speed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
-
Mamdani upsets Cuomo in NYC mayoral primary
Speed Read Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani beat out Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary
-
Supreme Court clears third-country deportations
Speed Read The court allowed Trump to temporarily resume deporting migrants to countries they aren't from