Washington:
Incoming US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would go ahead with his plans to deport all illegal immigrants after entering the Oval Office and said at the same time he would make it easier for people to come in, a move that could be helpful to Indians who mostly enter the US legally.
“I think you have to do it,” Trump told NBC News in an interview when asked if he plans to deport everyone who is here illegally over the next four years.
“You have to have, rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally. People that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been online for 10 years to come into the country. We are going to make it very easy for people to come in terms of they have to pass the test. They have to be able to tell you what the Statue of Liberty is. They have to tell you a little bit about our country. They have to love our country,” Trump said.
“They can’t come out of prisons. We don’t want people that are in for murder. So, we had 11,000 and 13,000 different estimates, 13,099 murderers released into our country over the last three years. They’re walking down the streets. They’re walking next to you and your family. They’re very dangerous. You don’t want those people in this country,” he said.
“I’m saying this. We have to get the criminals out of our country. We have to get people that were taken out of mental institutions and put them back into their mental institution, no matter what country it is,” Trump said, adding that his top priority on the deportation list is going to be such criminals.
“Number one, we’re doing criminals and we’re going to do them rapidly. We’re getting the worst gang probably with MS-13 and the Venezuelan gangs are the worst in the world. They’re vicious, violent people,” he said. “Is it realistic to deport everyone who’s here illegally?” he was asked.
“You have no choice. First of all, they’re costing us a fortune. But we’re starting with the criminals, and we’ve got to do it. Then we’re starting with others, and we’re going to see how it goes. Others are other people outside of criminals. We have convicted murderers. We don’t mean people that are even on trial. We have people that have murdered numerous people on our streets and in our farms, and we have to get them out of our country,” he said.
“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. Many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country. And yes, we’re going to do something about the dreamers,” he said.
“I will work with the Democrats on a plan. And if 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. The dreamers, we’re talking many years ago, they were brought into this country. Some of them are no longer young people. In many cases, they become successful. They have great jobs. We are going to have to do something with them,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)