Trump Tells 60 Minutes His Deportation Policy Was 'Too Tough' as DHS Says ICE Is Not Slowing Down

Five days after Republicans lost Congress on Nov. 3, and two days after Trump named Stephen Miller White House chief of staff, the president said on CBS's 60 Minutes, in an interview that aired tonight, Nov. 8, that his deportation policy went too far. It is one of his clearest public admissions on the issue he built his second term around.

"I think it was too tough," Trump told correspondent Ross Douthat. Asked whether the crackdown cost Republicans the midterms, he said it "both helped and hurt." Later in the exchange: "I think, ultimately, that hurt me."

What Trump said

Trump split his record in two. He gave himself "an A plus" for closing the southern border and "very high marks for getting the bad ones out."

The damage, he said, came from a different group. "We also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally."

He described a country divided. "There is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out," he said. "And there's a large part of the country that think that they should be allowed to stay if they're good people working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel." He added that some of them are "paying taxes."

Trump also said he would "love to do something on immigration" with congressional Democrats, who take control of both chambers next year. He gave no details. He said he thought a different pathway for that group of immigrants would be achievable.

He also repeated his line on Biden-era crossings, claiming 25 million people came in over four years. He did not offer a source for that number.

The administration says nothing changes

The tone did not match what the government was saying the same day. A White House spokeswoman told the BBC that "the administration will not slow down its efforts to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens who terrorise our communities."

A DHS spokesperson was blunter: "ICE is NOT backing away or slowing down."

A year ago, in an earlier 60 Minutes interview, Trump said the raids "haven't gone far enough."

On Friday he replaced Susie Wiles with Miller, who is widely viewed as the architect of the administration's immigration policy. Miller pushed ICE last year to aim for 3,000 arrests per day.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told CNN on Friday that Trump "needs to rethink" the appointment. "It is a colossal mistake, and the last thing we need 72 hours after the a-- whooping we got on Tuesday," he said.

Vice President JD Vance sounded more open after the election. "I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement, by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labour, for instance," he wrote in a long online post.

The numbers behind the argument

A large share of ICE arrestees have no criminal record beyond immigration offenses. The administration has said its priority is the "worst first," while warning that anyone in the country illegally can be arrested and deported.

Polling shows the political cost. An AP-NORC survey in July found 39 percent of respondents approved of the administration's handling of immigration, down 10 points from the start of the term. Views of ICE soured further after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Election-day polling put immigration third among voters' top issues, behind the economy and the state of democracy. That is a drop from 2024, when border security ranked near the top.

Latino voters who moved toward Republicans in 2024 moved sharply back toward Democrats on Tuesday. In Texas, Democrats won a Senate seat and the governorship. Sen. John Cornyn, who warned in early October that deporting people who have lived here "15, 20 years" is a "gray zone," lost the Republican primary to Ken Paxton. Democrat James Talarico won the seat on Tuesday after campaigning against how ICE operates.

What Democrats can and cannot do

Democratic winners have talked about reining in the deportation effort once they are sworn in. Some want a new immigration reform proposal while they control both chambers.

The limits are real. Trump holds the veto for two more years. Republicans have already frontloaded billions of dollars for immigration enforcement.

Democrats are expected to use oversight power to investigate ICE and DHS, including the operations in Minneapolis and allegations of misused funds at DHS.

Newsweek said it asked DHS for further comment Sunday evening. The open question is which Trump shows up in the lame-duck session and in January: the one who told Douthat he would love a deal, or the one whose new chief of staff and whose DHS say the arrests are not slowing.