Trump Says His Immigration Crackdown Was “Too Tough” in 60 Minutes Interview
US President Donald Trump told 60 Minutes his deportation drive hurt Republicans in the midterms and said he would like a deal with Democrats. His homeland security department said it is not slowing down, and he has just promoted hardliner Stephen Miller to chief of staff.
US President Donald Trump said his immigration crackdown was "too tough" in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday, days after Republicans lost control of Congress in the midterm elections. It is one of his clearest public retreats from a defining plank of his agenda.
Trump said he deserved an "A plus" for sharply limiting illegal border crossings. He said sweeping deportations had politically hurt him.
"I think I got an A plus for closing up the border," Trump said. He added that he gets "very high marks for getting the bad ones out."
"But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally," he said. "I think it was too tough."
He told the programme immigration "both helped and hurt" Republicans in the election. He also said he would "love to do something on immigration" with congressional Democrats, but gave no details.
Administration pushes the other way
The homeland security department did not follow his lead. "ICE is NOT backing away or slowing down," a department spokesperson said on Sunday. ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that carries out deportations.
A White House spokeswoman earlier said the administration "will not slow down its efforts to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens who terrorise our communities."
ICE sources said officials have been told in recent weeks to aim for about 2,700 arrests of illegal immigrants per day. The earlier target was 2,000.
Trump's tone also differs from a year ago. In a previous 60 Minutes interview, he insisted the raids "haven't gone far enough."
Miller named chief of staff
On Friday, Trump named Stephen Miller, 41, as White House chief of staff. Miller is widely seen as the architect of the administration's hardline immigration policy. He replaces Susie Wiles, who is stepping down, and starts Monday.
Vice-President JD Vance had sounded more open to change after the vote. "I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement - by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labour, for instance," he wrote in an online post.
Democrats condemned the Miller appointment. Senator Chuck Schumer, likely to be the next Senate majority leader, wrote that Trump "learned nothing from his historic defeat." Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become House speaker, called Miller "a dangerous xenophobe" and urged Trump to fire him.
Election day polling showed immigration was the third most important issue for midterm voters, after the economy and the state of democracy. A swing of Latino voters toward Democrats in historically conservative states such as Texas helped produce the party's congressional majorities.
Enforcement sweeps this year prompted anti-ICE protests in Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. In Minneapolis, immigration agents fatally shot two US protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
