“I’ll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows” to reverse the migrant invasion, President-elect Donald Trump told TIME Magazine in an interview.
Some foreign governments may resist the return of their migrants, but “I’ll get them into every country, or we won’t do business with those countries,” Trump told the magazine, whose interviewers repeatedly pressed Trump to back off of his election promises.
Time asked conventional questions echoing the establishment’s opposition to Trump’s popular policies: “What will you do if the military does not or refuses to carry out your [migration-law enforcement] orders? … So you’re saying there won’t be new camps, more camps to hold detained migrants? … Will you restore your policy of separating families? … If you deport millions of migrant agricultural workers, won’t the price of food rise sharply?”
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a reception at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after being named TIME’s “Person of the Year” for the second time on December 12, 2024 in New York City. Trump followed the event by ringing the opening bell on the trading floor. (Spencer Platt/Getty)
Time‘s establishment view of migration ensured it did not ask important questions about the pocketbook and economic impact of migration. It ignored those questions because the Biden years show that establishment-favored migration — both legal and illegal — cuts family wages, slows workplace productivity, spikes housing costs, and also cripples economic development in poor countries, so reducing future U.S. exports.
Trump told Time‘s establishment journalists:
I consider it an invasion of our country. We have criminals coming into our countries that we’ve never seen, we’ve never seen before. We have people coming in at levels and at record numbers that we’ve never seen before.
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Well, there might be [new detention facilities]. Whatever it takes to get them out. I don’t care. Honestly, whatever it takes to get them out. Again, I’ll do it absolutely within the confines of the law, but if it needs new camps, but I hope we’re not going to need too many because I want to get them out, and I don’t want them sitting in camp for the next 20 years. I want them out, and the countries have got to take them back, and if they don’t take them back, we won’t do business with those countries, and we will tariff those countries very substantially. When they send products in, they will have substantial tariffs, and it’s going to make it very hard for them to do business with us.
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I would much rather deport [families with children] together, yes, than separate. By the way, when you talk about separation, we have 325,000 children here during Democrats—and this was done by Democrats—who are right now slaves, sex slaves or dead … what I will be doing will be trying to find where they are and get them back to their parents.
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We have tremendous illegal immigration coming in through Canada. Drugs are coming in through Canada in large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen. And I’ll take action against Canada and Mexico. We’re not going to allow this to happen.
But Trump is also zig-zagging on migration issues by repeatedly endorsing legal migration favored by employers and state governors.
[Voters] want to see people come in. Everyone’s okay with it, and I am certainly. I want to have a lot of people coming, because we’re going to, we’re going to bring back a lot of jobs.
However, the Trump comment is vague and does not say if he will reduce or raise the inflow of legal migrants.
Under current law, the federal government imports roughly one million legal migrants per year, plus roughly one million temporary white-collar and blue-collar workers. That huge inflow adds up to slightly more than one new migrant for every two births in the United States.
Meanwhile, business groups and most GOP governors are lobbying behind closed doors to curb the repatriation of migrants or the reunification of young migrants with their at-home families.
On December 11, for example, 26 GOP governors said via the Republican Governors Association that they would help the federal government to deport crminal migrants — but did not offer any help in the deportation of illegal migrants working in jobs that would otherwise be held by better-paid Americans.
“As Republican governors, we stand united in support of President Donald Trump’s unwavering commitment to make America safe again by addressing the illegal immigration crisis and deporting illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our communities and national security.
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“We are proud to welcome President Trump back to the White House, a leader who has consistently put America first. His leadership is exactly what our nation needs to restore law and order at the border, and we are eager to work alongside his Administration to tackle the critical challenges facing our nation.
So far, Trump’s choice of staff suggests he will run a determined campaign to reduce the wealth-shifting inflow of migrants.
Those staff include the appointment of Stephen Miller as migration czar, Tom Homan as border chief, and Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of the Department of State.