‘Is It Realistic?’: Top Republican Casts Doubt on Trump’s Deportation Quest
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) cast doubt on President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to deport three million undocumented immigrants, noting he has to be “realistic” about what the government can do.
Thune, in an interview with Meet the Press on Sunday, noted that the incoming administration needed to pace itself and develop processes as the administration carries out its policy. But after host Kristen Welker noted Thune’s comments in 2016 that deporting everyone living in the U.S. illegally wasn’t realistic, he demurred.
“Is it realistic to deport everybody? I mean, there’s a lot of people in this country who are here illegally,” Thune said. “Anybody who has committed a crime in this country clearly out to be on that list. And there are a bunch of folks, over a million, 1.4 million I think, on the current administration’s list of people that need to be deported. So start with that, and then we’ll go from there and figure it out. But I think that the administration when they take office, these are decisions, obviously, they’re going to have to make.”
The newly-minted majority leader said the ultimate goal had to be securing the border and adhering to existing laws. “People have to understand that we are a nation of immigrants, but we are first and foremost a nation of laws, and you’ve got to follow the law,” he said.
The incoming Trump administration, including “border czar” Tom Homan, has promised to cast out all undocumented immigrants in the country as one of its marquee policy positions—with few insights into how it will be done. Some details have emerged, including the transition team’s desire to deport immigrants to other countries should their home nations not accept them, but even such preliminary reports have been condemned by Latin American leaders.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro said last week that the country would reconsider housing a U.S. military base if Trump follows through with his plans. “Faced with a hostile attitude of mass expulsion of our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our policies of cooperation with the United States,” she said in a speech on Wednesday.
In response to an NBC News report that the Trump transition team proposed sending migrants to other nations, including the Bahamas, should their native countries not accept them, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis' office said his country flatly rejected the proposal.
“The Bahamas simply does not have the resources to accommodate such a request,” Davis said in a statement last month. “The Prime Minister... remain[s] focused on addressing the concerns of The Bahamian people.”
