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President Donald Trump has acknowledged that his administration's deportation crackdown may have gone too far, telling CBS News' 60 Minutes that the policy "might be too tough" and saying he would like to negotiate an immigration agreement with Democrats that would allow some long-term undocumented residents to remain in the United States.
The interview, conducted by correspondent Ross Douthat and broadcast on Sunday, November 8, came five days after Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate in the November 3 midterm elections. Asked whether his deportation policy had gone too far, Trump answered: "I think it might be too tough, yeah." He added: "I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A+ for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I got hurt because we also took people that had good jobs."
Trump said the people he would still remove are those convicted of serious crimes, while long-term residents should be given a chance to stay. "Get the killers out. Get all the rough ones out. Get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for ten and 15 years, work a deal for them," he said. He said he believed such an arrangement was achievable, adding: "I'd love to do something on immigration. I think that's something that's actually doable." He also said some Democrats had already contacted him about a compromise.
The admission puts immigration at the centre of the argument over what cost Republicans the midterms. Critics argue the aggressive deportation strategy — continued workplace raids and the cancellation of immigration pathways — went too far, alienated voters and became a bigger political liability than the war with Iran, which Vice President JD Vance has blamed for the losses. Trump himself pointed to the deportations that swept up people with steady jobs, saying voters punished him for removing people whose only offence was entering the country illegally. Exit polling from the November 3 elections found that 58 percent of voters believed the administration's immigration actions had gone too far.
The interview was recorded on Friday, November 6 — the same day Trump elevated Stephen Miller, the architect of the deportation crackdown, to White House chief of staff, a move that has raised questions about whether the conciliatory language will translate into a change of policy. The Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday that immigration enforcement was not slowing down, and a White House spokeswoman said the administration would not ease its efforts to arrest and remove people in the country illegally who had committed crimes. According to CBS, immigration officials have recently been told to aim for about 2,700 arrests a day, up from an earlier target of 2,000.
No formal policy change has been announced. Trump offered no details of how a deal for long-term residents would work — no legal mechanism, no eligibility requirements and no timetable — saying only that he believed an agreement could be negotiated.