WASHINGTON:
Donald Trump will keep his campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented
migrants
from the
United States
, the US president-elect said in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, declaring that as many as three million could be removed after he takes office. “We are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate (them),” he said.
“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 two million, it could be even three million,” Trump told CBS News. “We’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally,” the 70-year-old business tycoon-turned-politician said in an excerpt released ahead of broadcast of the interview.
However, House Speaker and top Republican leader
Paul Ryan
struck a different tone, saying that despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric, lawmakers were not prepared to form a deportation force to round up and deport undocumented immigrants. “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that,” Ryan told CNN.
“I think we should put people's minds at ease: That is not what our focus is. We’re focused on securing the border. We think that’s first and foremost, before we get into any other immigration issue, we’ve got to know who’s coming and going into the country,” he added.
During the election campaign, Trump had warned that he would stop issuing visas to citizens of countries which do not accept these illegal immigrants.
There are an estimated 11 million documented immigrants in the country. Several hundred thousand are believed to be Indian-Americans. The President-elect said he would take a call on the fate of the rest of the illegal immigrants after the border is secured.
“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalised, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people but we are gonna make a determination at that,” Trump said.
“But before we make that determination...it’s very important, we are going to secure our border,” he said in response to a question.
Asked in the interview whether he would accept a fence instead of a wall with Mexico, as he vowed in the campaign, Trump said, “for certain areas I would... But certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I’m very good at this, it’s called construction, there could be some fencing”