In his first major interview with NBC News since winning the presidency on Nov. 5, Trump, who frequently referenced the issue throughout his campaign, reiterated that enforcing immigration laws and protecting national security will be prioritized over cost concerns.
"It's not a question of a price tag," Trump said during the phone interview on Thursday, Nov. 7. "It's not — really, we have no choice. When people have been killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they're going to go back to those countries because they're not staying here. There is no price tag."
So, throughout his campaign period, Trump had repeatedly pledged to conduct a mass deportation of the estimated 21 million, according to his calculation, undocumented immigrants who might be living in the United States. (Related: Former ICE Director Tom Homan: Trump's mass deportation plan won't separate families, since WHOLE FAMILIES of illegals will be deported together.)
"We have to make the border strong and powerful and we have to, at the same time, we want people to come into our country," he said before claiming that the U.S. still needs legal immigrants. "And you know, I'm not somebody that says, 'No, you can't come in.' We want people to come in."
Moreover, Trump has pledged to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law signed by former President John Adams, which grants the president the authority to deport any noncitizen from a country with which the U.S. is at war. He has also mentioned plans to deploy the National Guard, which can be activated upon a governor's order.
In July, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Patrick Lechleitner argued that conducting mass deportations would have logistical challenges, from arranging secure flights to managing international diplomacy and travel documentation. He added that deporting millions would require resources far beyond the current capabilities of ICE.
Abigail Andrews, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, echoed a similar statement. "There is no logistical way to track down 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants with the ICE employees they currently have," Andrews said.
Additionally, experts argued that financial demands are daunting. ICE's 2023 budget included $420 million for transportation and deportation, an amount far short of what would be needed to deport millions. But calculations from "experts" suggest that costs could run into tens of billions. It would also require new facilities and agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to house children separated during deportation processes as ICE's 41,500 available detention beds would also be inadequate.
Trump has credited immigration for his victory
During the phone interview, Trump set aside the skepticism from the public as he credited his victory on immigration, especially after gaining votes from Latino voters.
"They want to have borders, and they like people coming in, but they have to come in with love for the country. They have to come in legally." All this, even after the Democrats tried to sway Latino voters by using Trump's immigration stance.
"I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country," the president-elect said. "You can't have defund the police, these kind of things. They don't want to give up and they don't work, and the people understand that."
Head over to Trump.news for more stories about Donald Trump's plan to fix immigration.
Watch Tom Homan telling Veronika Kyrylenko of the New American magazine that the U.S. border is broken by design.
This video is from The New American channel on Brighteon.com.
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