President Donald Trump said Monday night that his administration has not pursued migrant workers with the same intensity as people accused of serious crimes, including murder and drug dealing.
In a call with C-SPAN, Trump was asked whether people who have lived in the United States for years, paid taxes and obeyed the law should face deportation alongside migrants convicted of serious offenses.
“We certainly haven’t put the same push on them as we have on the murderers or the drug dealers,” he said.
Trump also claimed that mental institutions had released dangerous people into the country. He said the administration had focused on what it calls “the worst of the worst,” adding that enforcement had not come close to targeting waitresses and farmworkers as aggressively.
His remarks follow recent comments suggesting he might work with Democrats on an agreement affecting some immigrants who have lived in the country illegally for more than a decade. Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in last week’s midterm elections.
In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, Trump was asked whether he would consider working with Democrats on immigration during the final stretch of his presidency. “I’d love to do something on immigration,” he replied.
Asked whether immigration enforcement had hurt Republicans in the midterms, Trump said he thought it had both helped and harmed the party. He praised his administration’s efforts at the border but acknowledged that deportations of people with jobs had drawn criticism.
“I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs,” he said.
Trump said Americans have differing views on whether immigrants who entered the country illegally should be deported. Some, he said, believe longtime workers should be allowed to stay, especially those who pay taxes and work in fields such as landscaping and hospitality.
He described the difficulty of seeing hotel cleaners, maids and waitresses removed from the country, while noting that some on the far right support deportations regardless of whether people are employed.
In the interview, Trump said he was willing to “work a deal” for people who had been in the United States illegally for 10 or 15 years. At a White House briefing Monday, however, he said there would be no amnesty and that his policy had not changed.
During the C-SPAN call, Trump was also asked whether he expected Republicans to oppose the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The House could consider an impeachment resolution introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., as soon as Tuesday.
Trump said he would be “disappointed” if any Republicans voted to impeach Hegseth.
Asked when the war with Iran might end, Trump said the timing remained uncertain. He said the conflict could be concluded quickly or over a relatively short period.
Trump said he had spoken with Qatar’s prime minister, who was at the White House on Monday, as well as leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. He said those countries, which he described as having been heavily attacked, preferred the current approach to another strike that he said would be about five times larger than the first.
Trump added that he believed Iran wanted to reach a deal, though he said it remained to be seen whether one would be made.
