Trump snaps back at claim he wanted alligators to stop immigrants

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday denied a US media report that he proposed extreme measures, including alligator-filled trenches, to stop migrants on the Mexican border.

"The press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moot stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border," Trump tweeted, later correcting the spelling to read "Moat." "I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough. The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!" Trump wrote.

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He was responding to a New York Times report detailing what was said to be Trump's frustration with laws restricting what he can do to stop migrants. Trump, the Times reported, discussed using potentially deadly reptiles and also spiked fences. He reportedly suggested allowing soldiers to shoot illegal border crossers in the legs after being told it was not permitted to use deadly force.

Trump has made a clampdown on both illegal and legal immigration one of the keystones of his nationalist "America First" presidency. Undocumented crossings of the Mexican border have dropped sharply.

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Electrified border wall

US President Donald Trump is so impatient to stop immigration in the United States that he suggested the border wall be electrified with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh, and proposed that it should be fortified with a "water-filled trench" with "snakes or alligators", during a March meeting with the White House advisors in the Oval Office, The New York Times reported.

He also asked his advisors to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico by noon the next day. Trump also advised that migrants be shot in their legs.

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(With PTI inputs)