Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) questioned on NBC's “Meet the Press” Sunday whether it would be “realistic” to illegally deport everyone in the United States.
Host Kristen Welker said, “Let's talk about the Republican agenda. When I spoke to President-elect Donald Trump, he said his plan for mass deportation is a top priority. We want to deport everyone. Do you support a plan to deport everyone who is here illegally?”
“I think there are certainly categories of people who have committed crimes,” Thun said. “There are over a million people that the current administration has targeted for deportation. So there are a lot of people in this country today. , I think we have to take seriously the fact that over 10 million people have entered the country in the last four years under the policies of the current administration, and many of them are not here for good reasons. We know we have arrested people on the terrorist border who are on the watch list, and we have gang members and cartel members and all of the above as we consider our next steps. , first of all, secure the borders, so that people are encouraged to come here illegally, in the past 4 It's about making sure that we change the incentives that have been activated, as we've been doing for years. And we're taking every step to make sure that our border agents, our ICE agents, our border agents have the resources they need to do their jobs. Some of them are physical barriers, some of them are technological barriers, and some of them require resources and some require deportation of certain people who are in the country illegally.”
Welker said: “In 2016 you said it was not practical to deport everyone here illegally. Have you changed your mind?”
Thune said, “Again, I think you should start. This is clearly a process and obviously it takes resources to deport people. The administration will make it possible. We need to make sure we have the resources to do so. Is it realistic to deport everyone? I mean, there are a lot of people in this country illegally. But I think they've already identified anyone who has committed a crime in this country, and the number is about 1 million, 1.4 people. I think there's a million people on the list of people we need. We'll start there and figure it out from there. I think we'll obviously have to make these decisions once the administration is in office.”
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