In a stark admission during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” President Donald Trump said he fully backed his administration’s harrowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and claimed they “haven’t gone far enough.”
His statements came after CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell described a series of brutal ICE actions, including federal agents smashing car windows, tackling a woman to the ground, and using tear gas in a residential neighborhood.
“Have some of these raids gone too far?” O’Donnell asked.
“No, I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama,” Trump said.
“You’re OK with those tactics?” O’Donnell countered.
“Yeah, because you have to get the people out,” Trump said.
Trump’s remarks highlight his administration’s use of violent and aggressive immigration enforcement, which has included masked agents blatantly assaulting people, and signals that he’s open to escalating it even further.
Agents have kicked down doors of people’s homes, pointed weapons at civilians and pinned people down while attempting to detain them.
Multiple people have also died in connection with ICE enforcement actions including a Chicago-area father who was fatally shot by a federal agent and two people who died after they were hit by vehicles while fleeing raids.
Although the administration has claimed it’s focused on people with a criminal record, the majority of people who have been detained by ICE as of late September have no criminal history.
“We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be you came into the country illegally, you’re going to go out,” Trump said, when asked if he intended to deport people who do not have a criminal record.
“However, you’ve also seen, you’re going to go out. We’re going to work with you, and you’re going to come back into our country legally,” he claimed.
Trump’s sit-down with the program marks his first since he sued CBS’s parent company over allegations of deceptively editing a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.