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.
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.
-
Africa's largest dam is making diplomatic waves
Under the Radar Ethiopians view using the Nile as a 'sovereign right' but the vast hydroelectric project has 'fuelled nationalist fervour' in Egypt and Sudan
-
Jessica Francis Kane's 6 favorite books that prove less is more
Feature The author recommends works by Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie-Helene Bertino, and more
-
Trump's drug war is now a real shooting war
Talking Points The Venezuela boat strike was 'not a mere law enforcement action'
-
House posts lewd Epstein note attributed to Trump
Speed Read The estate of Jeffrey Epstein turned over the infamous 2003 birthday note from President Donald Trump
-
Supreme Court allows 'roving' race-tied ICE raids
Speed Read The court paused a federal judge's order barring agents from detaining suspected undocumented immigrants in LA based on race
-
South Korea to fetch workers detained in Georgia raid
Speed Read More than 300 South Korean workers detained in an immigration raid at a Hyundai plant will be released
-
DC sues Trump to end Guard 'occupation'
Speed Read D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb argues that the unsolicited military presence violates the law
-
RFK Jr. faces bipartisan heat in Senate hearing
Speed Read The health secretary defended his leadership amid CDC turmoil and deflected questions about the restricted availability of vaccines
-
White House defends boat strike as legal doubts mount
Speed Read Experts say there was no legal justification for killing 11 alleged drug-traffickers
-
Epstein accusers urge full file release, hint at own list
speed read A rally was organized by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, who are hoping to force a vote on their Epstein Files Transparency Act
-
Court hands Harvard a win in Trump funding battle
Speed Read The Trump administration was ordered to restore Harvard's $2 billion in research grants