Trump signals openness to immigration deal, says deportation policy 'might be too tough'

President Donald Trump said in a CBS 60 Minutes interview aired on Sunday (November 8) that he would be willing to work out a deal with Democrats for longtime undocumented immigrants, and conceded that his deportation policy "might be too tough". The White House on Monday (November 9) did not rule out a deal. It was Trump's first sit-down interview since Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections. (Image: file image of Donald Trump.)

"It might be too tough"

Asked by interviewer Ross Douthat whether the deportation policy had gone too far, Trump answered: "I think it might be too tough, yeah." He said enforcement had both helped and hurt Republicans: he gave himself an "A+" for closing the border, but the administration had also taken out people with good jobs, such as hotel maids, cleaners and waitresses. "It's tough," he said. "Get the rapists out. Get the rough ones out. Get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years, work a deal for them, OK?"

White House does not rule out a deal on Monday

Trump said in the interview: "I'd love to do something on immigration." He described a deal with Democrats as "actually doable" and said people had already contacted him about one; he even said he could refrain from insulting the opposition party for six months if that was what it took to get a deal passed. A White House official said on Monday that the administration wanted Democrats to "show their cards", without ruling out a deal or saying what it would include. Trump never used the word "amnesty" in the exchange, a point the White House Rapid Response account stressed afterwards.

Conservative backlash as Miller takes over as chief of staff

Trump's remarks drew swift backlash from conservatives, with some supporters questioning whether it amounted to amnesty; Republican Representative Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida publicly praised them. Notably, on the same day, Stephen Miller, a chief architect of the hard-line immigration agenda, formally became White House chief of staff. Trump also partly blamed immigration enforcement for the midterm losses, saying it had "both helped and hurt" him.

Background: the ten-year threshold and the midterms

The ten-year mark Trump mentioned is not arbitrary: under current US law, an undocumented immigrant who has lived in the country continuously for at least ten years can ask an immigration judge to cancel removal. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that more than 90,000 ICE deportations in the first 18 months of Trump's second term, about 15% of the total, involved immigrants who had lived in the US for ten years or more. Democrats won control of both chambers on November 3, and the new Congress convenes in January 2027, so any immigration deal would need Democratic votes to pass.