President-elect Donald Trump will be returning to 60 Minutes tonight for an interview that’s guaranteed to be heavily scrutinized by both pro-Trump and anti-Trump camps. A fuss has already been made of Trump’s appearance of flexibility with Obamacare in his chat with Lesley Stahl, and now, comments about his immigration strategy have been previewed by the long-running program as well.
In a preview shared by CBS, Trump is asked about his controversial views on undocumented immigrants and provided confirmation that he plans to deport and incarcerate two to three million who fail to meet his requirements.
“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” offered Trump in his sit-down with 60 Minutes. “But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally.”
President-elect Trump stressed that he believes a “secure” border is key to America and he will continue with plans to build a wall separating the country from Mexico. How literal the proposed wall will be has always been a subject of debate, although Trump does suggest that “some fencing” seems more appropriate for select portions of this potential safeguard.
“For certain areas I would, but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” remarked Trump. “I’m very good at this, it’s called construction.”
Earlier today, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan attempted to lessen worries of deportation squads roaming the streets when speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper. It’s not entirely clear if Ryan and Trump will come to a complete agreement on the matter, but both men are making the public push for increased security.
“I think we should put people’s minds at ease: That is not what our focus is,” said Ryan on State of the Union. “That is not what we’re focused on. We’re focused on securing the border. We think that’s first and foremost, before we get into any other immigration issue, we’ve got to know who’s coming and going into the country — we’ve got to secure the border.”
(Via CBS News)