Trump on Meet the Press on Immigration
Last week, Donald Trump talked immigration on Meet the Press. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of the interview.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Okay. Let’s talk about mass deportation —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Okay.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– one of your big agenda items. You’ve talked about prioritizing people who have criminal history.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Correct.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But is it your plan to deport everyone who is here illegally over the next four years?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, I think you have to do it, and it’s a hard — it’s a very tough thing to do. It’s — but you have to have, you know, you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally. You know the people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been on line for ten years to come into the country. And we’re going to make it very easy for people to come in in terms of they have to pass the test. They have to be able to tell you what the Statue of Liberty is. They have to tell you a little bit about our country. They have to love our country. They can’t come out of prisons. We don’t want people that are in for murder. So we had 11,000 and 13,000, different estimates. 13,099 murderers released into our country over the last three years. They’re walking down the streets. They’re walking next to you and your family. And they’re very dangerous people —
KRISTEN WELKER:
The 13,000 figure I think goes back about 40 years.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
It goes — nope. No it doesn’t
KRISTEN WELKER:
That 13,000 figure.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
It’s within the three-year period. It’s during the Biden term. No, that was a fiction that they put that out. This was done by the border patrol. It’s 13,099 and it’s during the Biden period of time. And these are murderers, many of whom murdered more than one person. You don’t want those people in this country.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But you’re saying something, sir, that’s significant. So —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Go ahead.
KRISTEN WELKER:
I just want to make sure I’m clear, which is that you’re saying, yes, you’re going to focus on the people with criminal histories, but everyone who’s here illegally has to go, is what you’re saying.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
I’m saying this. We have to get the criminals out of our country. We have to get people that were taken out of mental institutions and put them back into their mental institution no matter what country it is. Do you know that in Venezuela their prisons are, are at the lowest point in terms of emptiness that they’ve ever been? They’re taking their people out of those prisons by the thousands and they’re drop — and just to get back, because I know exactly what you’re getting at. Number one, we’re doing criminals and we’re going to do them really rapidly. We’re getting the worst gang probably with MS-13 and the Venezuelan gangs are the worst in the world. They’re vicious, violent people. And you’ve seen what they’ve done in Colorado and other places. They’re taking over, they’re literally taking over apartment complexes and doing it with impunity. They don’t care. They couldn’t — they just are — they’re in the real estate business, okay?
KRISTEN WELKER:
You know that local police say that is not the case in Colorado.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Oh, it’s totally the case. I mean, they have it on tape.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You don’t believe the local police?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
I play it, I used to play it at my rallies every single night. No, it was breaking into doors. They’re taking over the building.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But sir, you raised the point —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
And by the way, the police, the police —
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
– are afraid to do anything.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You, you raised the point that the logistics are complicated. You said it yourself —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Sure they are. But everything’s complicated.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– yeah, you need 24 times more ICE detention capacity just to deport 1 million people per year, not to mention more agents, more judges, more planes. Is it realistic to deport everyone who’s here illegally?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
You have no choice. First of all, they’re costing us a fortune. But we’re starting with the criminals and we’ve got to do it. And then we’re starting with others and we’re going to see how it goes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Who are the others?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Others are other people outside of criminals. We have convicted murderers. And we don’t mean people that are even on trial. We have people that have murdered numerous people are on our streets and in our farms and we have to get them out of our country.
KRISTEN WELKER:
What about dreamers, sir? Dreamers, who were brought to this country illegally as children. You said once back in 2017 they, quote, “Shouldn’t be very worried about being deported.” Should they be worried now?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
The dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age. And many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country. And yes, we’re going to do something about the dreamers. And —
KRISTEN WELKER:
What does that mean? What are you going to do?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
I will work with the Democrats on a plan. And if we can come up with a plan, but the Democrats have made it very, very difficult to do anything. Republicans are very open to the dreamers. The dreamers, we’re talking many years ago they were brought into this country. Many years ago. Some of them are no longer young people. And in many cases, they’ve become successful. They have great jobs. In some cases they have small businesses. Some cases they might have large businesses. And we’re going to have to do something with them. And —
KRISTEN WELKER:
You want them to be able to stay, that’s what you’re saying?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
I do. I want to be able to work something out, and it should’ve been able to be worked out over the last three or four years and it never got worked out. You know, Biden could’ve done it because he controlled, you know, Congress to a certain extent, right? He could’ve done something, but they didn’t do it. I never understood why because they always seemed to want to do it, but then when it comes down to it, they don’t. I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Let me ask you about another group of people, the estimated 4 million families in America who have mixed immigration status. So I’m talking about parents who might be here illegally —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– but the kids are here legally. Your Border Czar Tom Homan —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
You’re talking about separation?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, I mean there are two aspects to this. Your Border Czar Tom Homan said they can be deported together.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Correct.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Is that the plan?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, that way you keep the — well, I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Even kids who are here legally?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, what you’ve got to do if they want to stay with their father — look, we have to have rules and regulations. You can always find something out like, you know, “This doesn’t work. That doesn’t work.” I’ll tell you what’s going to be horrible, when we take a wonderful young woman who’s with a criminal. And they show the woman, and she could stay by the law, but they show the woman being taken out. Or they want her out and your cameras are focused on her as she’s crying as she’s being taken out of our country. And then the public turns against us. But we have to do our job. And you have to have a series of standards and a series of laws. And in the end, look, our country is a mess. We have the highest crime rate and during the debate a man whose ratings have gone way down, David Muir, said to me, “no, crime is ..” — because I had to debate three people, not one. Debating one was easy. Debating three was actually pretty easy too, if you want to know the truth. But David, David Muir said, “The crime rates have gone down.” I said, “No, they’ve gone up.” And then the following day they released the crime rates and they were way up.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah, and the FBI statistics — you’re talking about those FBI statistics which are —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah, well, no, but he gave the wrong answer.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– confusing based on what you’re looking at?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah, but a lot of that is migrant crime.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Let me ask you about another aspect of this —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
And Kristen, you know a lot of it’s migrant crime.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, let me ask you about another aspect of this that I think a lot of people are really curious about. And 3% of the people who are here illegally have criminal histories. But in your first administration, you had the zero-tolerance policy, where we did see family separations.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You ended it. The purpose of that, though, to some extent, you talked about this at the time, was deterrence —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
And by the way, you also had it with Obama. You do know that.
KRISTEN WELKER:
He didn’t have a zero-tolerance policy.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
And you also know he built the jails for children.
KRISTEN WELKER:
He didn’t have a zero-tolerance policy.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
But in 2014 he built the jails. You know that.
KRISTEN WELKER:
I want to ask you about the zero-tolerance policy — I mean, he didn’t have a systemic, “We’re going to separate families.” Families were separated when the parents were a threat to the kids. Let me ask you about this —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
We don’t have to separate a family. Excuse me, Kristen.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
We don’t have to separate families.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah. Okay.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
We’ll send the whole family, very humanely, back to the country where they came. That way the family’s not separated.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So no more family separations? You’re not reviving the zero-tolerance policy?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, it depends on the family. The family may decide to say, “I’d rather have Dad go, and we’ll stay here.” And in which case they have that option.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But you’re not going to revive your zero-tolerance policy, which was put in place as a deterrent? Is there any universe where you would bring that back, sir?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
We need deterrence. Look, ready? When somebody comes here illegally, they’re going out. It’s very simple. When they come here illegally, they’re going out. Now if they come here illegally but their family is here legally, then the family has a choice. The person that came in illegally can go out, or they can all go out together.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
And that was made very clear by Tom Homan.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So you’re not, at this point in time, planning to revive that zero-tolerance policy where kids are separated?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, if you call it that — yeah. I’m doing what I just told you I’m going to do. You know, I don’t want to send the family out. I don’t want to send anybody out. But I’ll tell you, we have to because otherwise we have no country. If we don’t have borders and if we don’t have voting, good voting, fair voting. Do you know they’re still counting votes in San Diego, California? Listen, they’re still counting the votes. This is almost four weeks. They’re still counting the votes. If we don’t have fair elections and honest voting and machines that work quickly, if you had paper ballots every election would be over by 10:00 in the evening.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Sir, let me ask you —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
You understand what I’m saying.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, let me, before we get to —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
And you’d get a much more accurate count.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Before we get to all of that, let me ask you about some of your other promises on this topic.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Okay. Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Correct.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Is that still your plan?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah. Absolutely.
KRISTEN WELKER:
The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, “All persons born in the United States are citizens.”
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it. We’re the only country that has it, you know.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Through an executive action? You’re going to —
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
You know we’re the only country that has it. Do you know if somebody sets a foot, just a foot, one foot, you don’t need two, on our land, “Congratulations you are now a citizen of the United States of America.” Yes, we’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Through executive action?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Do you know — well, if we can, through executive action. I was going to do it through executive action but then we had to fix COVID first, to be honest with you. We have to end it. It’s ridiculous. Do you know we’re the only country in the world that has it? Do you know that? There’s not one other country.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, what about the legal challenge, the inevitable legal challenges that will come?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, that’s the other thing. Do you know we have thousands of judges? Somebody walks onto our land and we have to now say, “Welcome to the United States.” They could be a criminal or not a criminal. We release them into our country. It’s called catch and release. We release them into our country. Wait, just one second. And now they get them lawyers. And the lawyers are good lawyers. And everybody has a lawyer. And do you know how many judges we have? Thousands. Thousands. Now, here’s what other countries do. They come onto the land and they say, “I’m sorry, you have to go.” And they take them out. Okay, with us, once they touch our land, we’re into litigation that lasts for years. Costs us hundreds of billions of dollars. We have judges, and I’m sure they’re all honest but I don’t know that for a fact, you can imagine what’s going on with the judges. But just so you — because I have a lot of judges, I tell you what, I know more about judges than any human being in history. Look, we have judges. Every time somebody puts two feet or even one foot on a piece of our land, it’s welcome to long-term litigation. Other countries, every other country, when somebody walks on and they see that they’re here illegally, they walk them off, they take them back to where they came from. We have to get rid of this system. It’s killing our country.
KJ