President-elect Donald Trump vowed to deport 2 million to 3 million illegal, undocumented immigrants while discussing his immigration stance in his first post-election interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, November 13.
“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 2 million, it could even be 3 million — we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump, 70, explained to CBS News’ Lesley Stahl in a new sneak peek. “But we’re getting them out of our country. They’re here illegally.”
The real estate mogul also stood by his hard-line plan to build a wall along the United States–Mexico border, but admitted that “there will be some fencing.”
“For certain ares I would [include fencing], but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” he said in the clip. “I’m very good at this. It’s called construction.”
Trump continued, “After the border is secured and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that you’re talking about [undocumented immigrants] — who are terrific people, they’re terrific people — but we’re going to make a determination at that. But before we make that determination, Leslie, it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”
Earlier this year, the businessman met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to discuss the possibility of building a wall. Trump claimed during an August 31 press conference that the duo “didn’t discuss payment of the wall” during their meeting. Hours later, Peña Nieto disputed Trump’s claims, tweeting that he “made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall.”
