After two weeks of confusing comments about his immigration plan and a culminating speech confirming his hard-line positions on immigration, it’s still not clear exactly how Donald Trump plans to deport undocumented immigrants from the United States.
During his speech in Phoenix Wednesday night, Trump indicated that he still plans to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants from the country, saying, “You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country.”
And he focused on his plan to deport undocumented immigrants who had committed additional crimes in the U.S.
But during a Thursday night interview on Fox News, Trump again suggested that he doesn’t really have a plan for after he deports the “bad” undocumented immigrants.
“We’re gonna get rid of all the bad players that are here,” he told Fox News’ Greg Bolling. “After that takes place, which will be a process, and it won’t go that quickly, but it’s gonna go as quickly as any human being can do it. After that takes place, we’re gonna sit back, we’re gonna assess the situation, we’re going to see where we are.”
“We’re gonna make a decision at that time,” he continued. “I want to see, before we do anything further, I want to see how it shapes up when we have strong — I use the word impenetrable — border, but how it shapes up.”
This echoes comments Trump made on CNN last week. Trump told Anderson Cooper that he would first focus on deporting the “bad” guys.
“After that, we’re going to see what happens,” he said on CNN.
And Trump made a similar comment to Laura Ingraham on Thursday morning.
“Obviously, I want to get the gang members out, the drug peddlers out. We’ve got a lot of people in this country that you can’t have, and those people you can’t have,” Trump said. “And then we’re going to make a decision at a later date once everything is stabilized. I think you’re going to see there is quite a bit of softening.”
