Trump: Deportation 'Complicated,' but Criminals Out First

Blasting the liberal media for its turning the American people against the humanity of deportation, President-elect Donald Trump called for legal and just immigration measures, including mass deportation of criminal aliens "first," then consider DACA amnesty and reforming immigration law.

Trump admitted "everything's complicated" with regard to illegal immigration and Biden-era open borders, but he urged breaking down the crisis to simple things first, like getting the violent criminal migrants out first.

"I think you have to do it," Trump told NBC News' "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker in an interview recorded Friday but aired Sunday. "It's a very tough thing to do.

"But you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally."

It is an unjust system that grants protections to law-breakers over the law-abiding seekers of the American dream, Trump said.

"You know the people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have waited in line for 10 years to come in the country," Trump said.

"And we're going to make it very easy for people to come, in terms of they have to pass a test: They have to tell you what the Statue of Liberty is; they have to know a little bit about our country; they have to love our country.

"They can't come out of prisons. We don't want people that are in for murder."

Border czar Tom Homan has come under liberal media criticism for talking deporting entire families, but Trump told Welker separating families is not a goal either.

"I'll tell you what's going to be horrible, when we take a wonderful young woman who's with a criminal – and they show the woman, and she can stay by the law, but they show the woman being taken out – or they want her out, and your cameras are focused on her as she's crying, as she's being taken out of our country, and then the public turns against us," Trump warned Welker.

"But we have to do our job, and you have to have a series of standards and series of laws."

Having countries like Venezuela and their violent Tren de Aragua prison gang let out of prisons to migrate to America under the Biden administration has made America less safe, Trump warned.

"They're walking down the streets," he said. "They're walking next to you and your family. And they're very dangerous people."

Trump said a fact check, presented by Welker, was a "fiction" put out by Democrats and the liberal media.

"These are murderers, many of whom murdered more than one person: You don't want those people in this country," he said.

"We have to get the criminals out of our country. We have to get the people that were taken out of mental institutions and put them back into their mental institution no matter what country it is.

"No. 1, we're doing criminals, and we're doing them really rapidly. We're getting the worst gang – probably, with MS-13 – the Venezuelan gangs are probably the worst in the world. They're vicious, violent people."

Trump's mass deportation plans will start with criminals, then proceed to "others," he said.

"You have no choice," he continued. "First of all, they're costing us a fortune. But we're starting with the criminals, and we've got to do it. And then we're starting with others, and we're going to see how it goes."

Among the "others" are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which have some form of amnesty brought by former President Barack Obama. Trump said he is willing to work with Democrats on some form of permanent amnesty and ending birthright citizenship, according to Trump.

"The Dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the Dreamers, because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age – and many of these are middle-aged people now," he said. "They don't even speak the language of their country and, yes, we're going to do something about the Dreamers.

"I will work with the Democrats on a plan. We can come up with a plan.

"But the Democrats have made it very, very difficult to do anything. Republicans are very open to the Dreamers.

"In many cases, they have become successful. They have great jobs. In some cases, they have small businesses. Some cases, they might have large businesses. And we're going to have to do something with them."

Notably, President Joe Biden and his Democrats failed to do anything for DACA.

"I want to be able to work something out and it should have been able to be worked out over the last three or four years, and it never got worked out," Trump said.

"Biden could have done it, because he controlled Congress to a certain extent, right? He could have done something but they didn't do it. I never understood why. They always seem like they want to do it, then when it comes down to it, they don't.

"I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out."

But, birthright citizenship, the Constitution's 14th Amendment protection that gives citizenship to even the child of an illegal born in America, has to "absolutely" end, according to Trump.

"We're going to have to get a change," Trump said, admitting it will likely require more than executive action. "We're maybe going to have to go back to the people, but we're going to have to end it. We're the only country that has it, you know."