President Donald Trump said his administration’s deportation policy may have been “too tough” and acknowledged it hurt him politically, signaling he is willing to work with Democrats on immigration following the midterm elections.
The president made the remarks in an interview with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat that aired Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
Douthat asked Trump what issue he would most like to work on with a Democratic majority.
“Immigration,” Trump answered.
Pressed on whether his immigration crackdown had cost him at the ballot box, the president said it cut both ways.
“I think it both helped and hurt,” Trump said. “I got an A-plus for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs that created one violation or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally.”
Trump described the country as divided on what to do with illegal immigrants who have been working and living in the U.S.
“Now, there’s a large part of the country that think they should be put out, and there’s a large part of the country that think they should be allowed to stay, if they’re good people and they’re working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel, or doing something, right?” he said. “In some cases, paying taxes.”
When Douthat asked directly whether his deportation policy went too far, the president did not back away from the question.
“I think it was too tough,” Trump said. “I think it might be too tough, yeah, and I think ultimately that hurt me.”
Asked what a deal with Democrats would look like, Trump kept the details vague but expressed confidence an agreement could be reached.
“The deal would be, we would work something out. And I think that’s something that’s actually doable,” he said.
Douthat followed up, asking whether that could mean some form of legal status for workers such as landscapers. Trump pointed to hotel employees who have been deported after years on the job.
“When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as a, you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this as a that, as a waitress, a lot of good things, great jobs. And all of a sudden, they’re being taken out of the country, it’s tough. It’s a tough thing,” Trump said.
The president added that some on the right want a far more sweeping approach.
“There’s a group of people that I would say on sort of the pretty far right that would like everybody taken out,” he said.
When Douthat asked whether any of those people work in his administration, Trump replied, “Yes.” He did not name anyone.
Stephen Miller, whom Trump recently tapped as his new chief of staff, has been the chief architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration agenda. The policies have drawn fierce criticism over families being separated, as well as the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens who were protesting the crackdown.
The pushback has also come from inside the president’s own household. The Wall Street Journal reported that first lady Melania Trump blamed the policies after friends of hers were deported, and that the president subsequently conceded Miller had “gone too far” with deportations.
The comments mark a notable shift in tone from a president who made border security and mass deportations a centerpiece of his political brand. Whether Democrats are willing to take Trump up on his offer, and what any potential deal would include, remains to be seen.
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