The Associated Press dropped the ball Friday with a supposed scoop alleging President Trump is considering deploying approximately 100,000 National Guard units to round up illegal immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security is considering no such thing, an agency spokeswoman said following the story’s publication.
The leaked DHS memo on which the entire AP report hinges was only an early, pre-decision draft, and it wasn’t written by the agency’s secretary, John F. Kelly, according to federal officials.
The draft memo didn’t specifically suggest nationalizing the National Guard. The draft memo also never used the 100,000 figure cited by the AP, though it’s possible the news group came to that number by tallying the number of troops currently stationed in the 11 states where the National Guard would supposedly be used to crack down on illegal immigration. The report doesn’t explain this.
