Trump Tells 60 Minutes His Deportation Policy May Have Been 'Too Tough,' and Floats a Deal for Long-Term Residents
In a CBS interview aired Sunday, President Trump said his deportation drive may have been 'too tough,' said it took people who had good jobs, and said he would work on a deal for people who have been in the country 10 to 15 years — two days after he named the crackdown's architect his chief of staff.
AUSTIN — President Donald Trump said in a CBS '60 Minutes' interview aired Sunday night that his deportation policy may have been 'too tough,' the most direct softening of his enforcement message since his party lost control of Congress in last week's midterms.
"I think it was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah," he said in the interview, which was recorded on Friday. He said enforcement had both helped and hurt him: he claimed high marks for closing the border and for removing criminals, but said it also "took people that had good jobs," naming workers at a landscaping company and a hotel who were paying taxes.
He signaled a willingness to work with Democrats, who will control both chambers of Congress in January, on the status of people who have been in the country for a decade or more. "The deal would be we would work something out," he said of people here for 10 and 15 years, while repeating that people who commit killings should be removed.
No written enforcement rule has changed, and the White House announced no new policy with the interview. A White House spokesperson told the BBC the administration would continue arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants accused of criminal activity. CBS News exit polling cited in the coverage found 58 percent of voters believed the administration's immigration actions had gone too far.
The concession landed two days after Trump appointed Stephen Miller, the architect of the hardline enforcement policy, as White House chief of staff, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer responded on social media Sunday by scoffing at the admission. For Austin, where the City Council is already weighing how far local police go in cooperating with federal immigration warrants, the president's words are the new backdrop: the city's file continues on this station.
