First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on Tuesday night that President Donald Trump will not abandon his immigration agenda after the Republicans' midterm losses, vowing "zero change" in enforcement and saying the president will veto any bill that includes amnesty for immigrants living in the country illegally.
"Amnesty will never be on the table," Mullin said on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle." He said the Department of Homeland Security is deporting roughly 3,600 people a day and has no plans to slow down. "The president has made it very clear he controls the veto. So if they were to send something over that the president and the Republicans don't agree with, he can veto it, and he will veto it," Mullin said. "The president will not sign anything that isn't in the right movement for this country and the Republican Party."
Mullin's remarks came two days after Trump told CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday that his mass deportation campaign may have gone "too far" and floated a deal for people who have lived in the country for 10 or 15 years — remarks that angered parts of his base and set off speculation that the administration might soften its hard-line policy.
On Monday, Mullin told reporters that Trump had instructed him to work with Democrats who have been calling about immigration reform, while insisting enforcement policy would not change. He left one door open: Congress could look at a pathway for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects about 440,000 people brought to the country illegally as children, to become legal permanent residents — a decision he said would be up to Congress. "We're never going to allow amnesty to happen," he said.
Trump himself shut down the speculation on Monday, saying in a video posted by the White House, "There's NO AMNESTY... My policy hasn't changed." Mullin also stressed that entering the United States illegally does not erase the requirement to follow the legal immigration process. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has named a bill restoring protections for DACA and Temporary Protected Status holders as a starting point for talks, while the House Freedom Caucus has said it rejects amnesty.