Talking broadly about his plans for mass deportations, President-elect Donald Trump mentioned households with undocumented mother and father who’ve U.S.-born kids can be deported collectively as a result of he doesn’t “want to be breaking up families.”
“So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump mentioned to Kristen Welker on Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press.”
“Even kids who are here legally?” Welker requested.
“Well, what you’ve got to do if they want to stay with their father — look, we have to have rules and regulations,” Trump mentioned.
Peter Kramer/NBC through Getty Photos
Welker was asking Trump concerning the roughly 4 million mixed-status households in America, through which some members of the family have authorized standing and others are undocumented.
Trump’s reply echoes that of his “border czar,” Tom Homan, who in a “60 Minutes” interview in October mentioned, “Families can be deported together,” in response to a query about how mass deportations will be carried out with out separating households.
Later within the “Meet the Press” interview, he doubled down on the concept households wouldn’t be separated.
“We’ll send the whole family, very humanely, back to the country where they came. That way the family’s not separated,” he mentioned. “The family may decide to say, ‘I’d rather have Dad go, and we’ll stay here.’ And in which case they have that option.”
Trump appeared to have a softer stance towards “Dreamers,” the lots of of hundreds of individuals delivered to the nation as kids by undocumented mother and father and protected against deportation underneath the Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
“The Dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age,” Trump mentioned.
He mentioned he wished to “work with Democrats” on a plan for the Dreamers to remain.
Additionally within the interview, Trump vowed to make use of an government motion to finish birthright citizenship, one thing that’s enshrined within the 14th Modification of the Structure. When requested if that’s even attainable, he mentioned, “Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.” He incorrectly mentioned that America is the one nation to have birthright citizenship — about three dozen international locations, together with Canada and Mexico, present birthright citizenship.
Throughout Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign, he promised to deport undocumented immigrants residing in the US, saying he’ll concentrate on “violent criminals” ― however seemingly which means the roughly 11 million undocumented individuals within the nation are all a part of that group.
In September at a marketing campaign rally, Trump mentioned deporting undocumented immigrants can be a “bloody story.” His allies have mentioned jail camps might be wanted to deport immigrants.
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In 2016, Trump mentioned former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” which was named after a slur and deported a reported 1 million immigrants in 1954, was “a very effective chapter,” in line with “some people.”
Sunday’s interview on “Meet the Press” was Trump’s first as president-elect.
Trump additionally spoke about Pete Hegseth, a former Fox Information host, whom Trump plans to appoint for secretary of protection. Hegseth has been accused of rape and consuming on the job, and his mom as soon as referred to as him an “abuser of women.” Trump mentioned Hegseth has a “tremendous track record.”
