President Donald Trump is facing criticism from the Right after appearing to backtrack on his trademark mass deportation policy.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Trump said he “was too tough” with his deportation campaign and added that he would “love” to make a deal with Democrats to give some illegal immigrants without criminal histories legal status.
“I think it was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah. I think ultimately that hurt me,” Trump said in the interview.
The comments quickly drew criticism from conservatives and advocates of the mass deportation campaign.
Josh Hammer, senior counsel at the Article III Project, said Trump’s comments were the “wrong conclusion from this election.”
Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren responded with two telling words: “Come again?”
During the recent interview, Trump appeared to advocate for giving legal status to illegal immigrants who work and pay taxes.
“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 that was that they came into the country illegally,” the president said.
“When you go into a hotel, and you have a woman that’s worked there 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,” he added.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the president’s narrative is a false one.
“Whatever you think of this, there’s no such thing as people ‘that created one violation with breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally’ — all adult illegals commit multiple felonies: ID theft, ID fraud, tax fraud, Social Security fraud, perjury,” he wrote.
Political consultant Ryan Gidursky said a bipartisan deal scaling back Trump’s deportation effort “will kill the party.”
“After realizing that the Iran War hurt the party, he’s now proposing an idea that will kill the party,” he said.
Daily Wire host Matt Walsh also weighed in, saying Trump’s deportation policy “was not too tough” and that he needs to go even harder.
“There need to be more deportations, not fewer,” Walsh wrote. “The mistake was staging deportation theater with Kristi Noem out on ICE raids dressed like Tomb Raider. Don’t call so much attention to it. Don’t have government accounts on X posting spicy memes about it. Just go do it, efficiently and professionally. Is that option even being considered?”
The White House later tried to address some of the criticism, responding to a post arguing that Trump was advocating for an “amnesty deal.”
“Wrong. The word ‘amnesty’ was never even said in this entire exchange,” the White House Rapid Response account on X wrote.
One Republican, Florida Rep. Maria Salazar, who came out against the president’s mass deportation effort in a campaign video ahead of the midterms, applauded Trump’s comments. Salazar is one of a small number of Republicans to win re-election in a heavily Latino district.
“Well done, Mr. President,” Salazar wrote, while saying that Trump’s words are the “core” of her immigration reform bill known as the Dignity Act, which many conservatives have criticized for promoting mass amnesty.
“Mr. President, I have said it repeatedly. YOU can bring Republicans and Democrats together to finally fix our broken immigration system. A 40-year problem. You can surpass Reagan’s legacy by delivering a historic immigration reform. This is your moment,” Salazar wrote.
Steve Cortes, a former senior adviser to Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, called for the president to “reverse course” instead of “pleasing Salazar.”
“Mr. President, when you’re pleasing Salazar, you’re losing America First,” he wrote. “Reverse course!”
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