President Donald Trump suggested that he might consider removing federal immigration officers and Border Patrol agents from California because the state has done a "lousy management job" in helping federal agents to enforce immigration policy.
"I mean, frankly, if I wanted to pull our people from California, you would have a crime mess like you’ve never seen in California," Trump said during a White House meeting on school safety, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.
The president said that California would be "begging for us to come back" after two months, according to the report.
California has a "sanctuary state" policy, in which the state openly refuses to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
In January, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra warned businesses that if they helped authorities in sweeps to find immigrants, they would violate the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, The Sacramento Bee reported.