President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he intends to continue immigration raids across the country, saying, “I don't think they went far enough.”
He added in interview with Norah O'Donnell of CBS News on 60 Minutes that his mass deportation program, one of his top 2024 campaign promises, “is being kept in check by the judges, the liberal judges who were nominated [former President Joe] Biden and [former President Barack] Obama.”
His remarks came even as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been photographed and filmed at times using violent methods to detain immigrants across the country.
Asked if he agreed that ICE agents sometimes use violent tactics, Trump replied: “Yes, because you need to get people out.”
He added: “Many of them are murderers. A lot of them are people who were kicked out of their countries because they were, you know, 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 who ICE knew had been convicted of murder and 11% of those who ICE knew had been convicted of sexual assault.
Trump's comments are not the first sign that the president supports aggressive immigration detention tactics. NBC News reported last week that the Trump administration plans to replace some ICE regional leaders with Border Patrol officials to speed up the pace of deportations across the country. In particular, Trump administration officials have applauded the Border Patrol's aggressive tactics regarding immigration enforcement.
In a “60 Minutes” interview that was taped Friday, the president raised concerns that his deportation agenda was rounding up landscapers, farmers and other workers, not just the criminals and “worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants he promised to deport during his presidential campaign.
“Look, I need farmers and landscapers more than anyone,” Trump told O'Donnell.
Asked whether he intended to deport people without criminal records, the president told O'Donnell: “We have to start with policy, and the policy has to be that you entered the country illegally, you are going to leave.”
He added that if illegal immigrants are deported and want to return to the U.S., “we will work with you and you will return to our country legally.”
