President Trump said he is ready to work with Democrats on an immigration reform bill and revealed that he believes his illegal immigration removal policies may have been viewed as “too tough.”
Mr. Trump, speaking to CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in an interview released Sunday, said he would “love to do something on immigration” with Democrats who will control Congress in January and said people “have already called me” to discuss working on a deal.
The interview took place days after Republicans were walloped in the polls, losing enough seats to give Democrats an overwhelming majority in the House and a significant majority in the Senate. Neither margin is veto-proof; Democrats would need Republican partners to override a Trump veto.
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Mr. Trump said his administration’s practice of deporting people who have not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. went too far in the eyes of voters.
“I think it might be too tough,” Mr. Trump said when asked about the deportations.
Mr. Trump said people are divided on deportations between those “that would like everybody taken out,” who he said are mostly on the far right.
“People that are more moderate than that. Get the killers out, get all the rough ones out, get the drug dealers out, but let the people that are here, and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years, work a deal for them,” he added.
However, shortly after Mr. Trump gave the interview on Friday, which aired Sunday, he announced he was replacing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Mr. Miller was the architect of the administration’s aggressive deportation policy. He has also threatened to become a veto president and displayed a version of the iconic red-and-white MAGA cap with the word “veto.”
The White House reported more than 600,000 deportations over the past two years. In addition, the administration revoked the legal status of approximately 1.2 million immigrants.
Democratic Sens.-elect James Talarico of Texas and Annie Andrews of South Carolina have said they want to work with Mr. Trump on an immigration reform plan.
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