​House Speaker Nancy Pelosi​ said she appealed to President Trump as a mother to get him to back off his threat to deport thousands of illegal immigrants.

​”I said​,​ ‘Look, I’m a mom, I have five kids​, nine grandchildren, and children are scared,​’ ​” Pelosi said​ Monday during a ​”Speaker in the House” event in Queens. ​”​You’re scaring the children of America. Not just in those families, but their neighbors and their communities. You’re scaring the children.​”​

The California Democrat ​phoned Trump on Friday evening to urge him to ​call off the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that were to begin in 10 major cities across the country — including New York — on Sunday.

Pelosi said Trump didn’t hint about what he was going to do​ and concluded their conversation by saying​:​ “I’ll let you know.”

The following day, Trump announced on Twitter that he was postponing the deportations for two weeks to give Democrats and Republicans time to “work out a solution” to enforcement problems at the border.

​”Probably won’t happen, but worth a try. Two weeks and big Deportation begins!​,” the president said in the posting.

​Pelosi said she believes some faith-based groups that make up a large portion of the president’s base reached ​out to him to ask that he back off his plan.

She encouraged them to keep up the pressure on Trump “to remove all doubt that we, in our country, respect people for their dignity and worth, their spark of divinity, respect them for their rights being in the United States of America, and recognizing that families belong together.​”​