Trump suggested shooting 'migrants in the legs': NY Times

US President Donald Trump suggested shooting migrants “in the legs” in order to prevent them from coming through the US-Mexico border, The New York Times reports.

According to an excerpt from the the book "Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration," Trump made the suggestion along with a series of other highly bizarre and illegal solutions for stopping illegal immigration in a meeting in March.

The meeting was attended by White House aide Stephen Miller, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then-Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and other senior staff.

"You are making me look like an idiot!" the president shouted during the meeting, adding in profanities, according to several officials in the room who talked to the Times. "I ran on this. It's my issue.''

“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,” write Times journalists Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis in their forthcoming book.

“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 authors added.

Nielsen told Trump that shutting down the border would not stop migrants from applying for asylum, but Trump remained resolute, according to the Times.

When Kushner tried to reason with the president, he responded, "All you care about is your friends in Mexico." Trump added, "I've had it. I want it done at noon tomorrow."

Caravans of migrants from Central American countries have been traveling for months through various routes ending up in Mexico to reach the country’s border with the US, where they seek to apply for asylum and settle down.

However, the Trump administration has been blocking them at the border with Mexico. The Trump administration has even separated migrant children from their parents or deported those who have successfully crossed back to their home countries, where they face violence or economic difficulties.

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Rights groups have condemned those practices. Amnesty International condemned the Trump administration policy in January as “disgraceful, mean-spirited and unlawful.”

The Republican president has vowed to crack down on immigration but has failed to get his complete agenda through so far.

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