Trump suggests deporting families with mixed immigration status
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Trump points at a group of photographers and says, "fake news," while posing with National Border Patrol Council during a campaign rally on Oct. 13 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Photo: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
President-elect Trump proposed in an interview aired Sunday that families with mixed immigration status should be deported together, echoing his selected "border czar" Tom Homan.
The big picture: An estimated 4.7 million households in the U.S. are defined as "mixed-status," meaning they house at least one undocumented resident and at least one citizen or legal noncitizen resident, per the Center for Migration Studies.
- Forty-eight percent of 2.8 million households with at least one undocumented resident are the home of at least one U.S.-born child, the center reports.
Driving the news: "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," Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Kristen Welker.
- Pressed by Welker on what that approach could mean for children who are in the country legally despite their parents being undocumented, Trump said, "Well, what you've got to do if they want to stay with their father — look, we have to have rules and regulations."
Flashback: Trump's past family separation policy at the border, which saw nearly 4,000 kids being taken from their parents, caused uproar and sparked humanitarian concerns during his first term.
- Homan, a staunch supporter of Trump's mass deportation plans, played a role in the controversial policy under the president-elect's first tenure on Pennsylvania Ave.
Zoom out: In the same interview, however, Trump seemed open to allowing Dreamers, those who were brought to the U.S. as children and granted protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, to stay in the country.
- He said "we have to do something about the Dreamers," adding later he will "work with the Democrats on a plan."
- "Republicans are very open to the Dreamers ... many years ago they were brought into this country," he said.
- "Some of them are no longer young people," Trump continued. "And in many cases, they've become successful."
Yes, but: Trump then took a hardline stance on birthright citizenship, reaffirming his plan to nix it day one.
- "We have to end it. It's ridiculous," he said, but did not provide details on how he would sidestep the 14th Amendment.
- He repeatedly said the U.S. is "the only country that has it." But Canada, Brazil and dozens of other nations offer birthright citizenship.
The bottom line: Trump has sworn to conduct mass deportations starting day one of his presidency — plans immigration experts say could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and have triggered humanitarian worries.
- The "how" behind the president-elect's proposed crackdown is still murky.
Go deeper: Takeaways from Trump's "Meet the Press" interview
