‘They didn’t go far enough’
President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that he is committed to continuing immigration enforcement raids across the country, saying: “I think they haven’t gone far enough.”
He added in an interview with Norah O’Donnell on CBS News’ 60 Minutes that his mass deportation agenda, one of his central 2024 campaign promises, “has been blocked by the judges, by the liberal judges, who were put in place before.” [former President Joe] Biden and by [former President Barack] “Obama.”
His comments come even after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been photographed and recorded at times using violent tactics to detain immigrants across the country.
Asked if he approved of ICE agents sometimes using violent tactics, Trump said: “Yes, because you have to get people out.”
He added: “Many of them are murderers. Many of them are people who were expelled from their countries because, you know, they were criminals.”
In June, internal ICE data obtained by NBC News found that in the last three months of the Biden administration and the first five months of the Trump administration, ICE detained only 6% of undocumented immigrants known to ICE to have been convicted of murder and 11% of those known to ICE to have been convicted of sexual assault.
Trump’s comments are not the first indication that the president favors aggressive immigration detention tactics. NBC News reported last week that the Trump administration planned to replace some regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders with Border Patrol officials with the goal of ramping up the pace of deportations across the country. In particular, Trump administration officials have welcomed the Border Patrol’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.
In a “60 Minutes” interview taped Friday, the president addressed concerns that his deportation agenda was aimed at arresting landscapers, farmers and other workers, not just the criminals and “the worst of the worst” illegal immigrants he promised to deport during his presidential campaign.
“Look, I need the farmers and I need the landscapers more than anyone,” Trump told O’Donnell.
Asked if he intended to deport people without a criminal record, the president told O’Donnell: “We have to start with a policy, and the policy has to be, if you enter the country illegally, you will get out.”
He added that if illegal immigrants are deported and want to return to the United States, “we will work with you, and you will return to our country legally.”