Trump Deportation Policy Too Tough, President Says

President Trump said on 60 Minutes that his deportation drive may have been too tough on immigrants with steady jobs. No written enforcement rule has changed, and his last turn in this direction lasted only days.

The Trump deportation policy may have been “too tough,” President Donald Trump said in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday, Nov. 8, a rare concession that his enforcement push went too far for some immigrants. The remark speaks most directly to long-settled immigrants without legal status who work and pay taxes, but ICE’s arrest authority and its written rules are unchanged, and the White House has announced no new policy.

“So I think it was too tough,” Trump told correspondent Ross Douthat, according to CBS News. He said the crackdown “both helped and hurt” him with voters: he claimed “an A+ for closing up the border,” but said he was hurt “because we also took people that had good jobs,” naming people working for a landscaping company or a hotel and paying taxes. Agence France-Presse, reporting the same exchange, quoted him as saying “I think it might be too tough.” Trump added that he would “love to do something on immigration” with Democrats, who will control both chambers of Congress next year.

The timing helps explain the shift in tone. The interview came three days after heavy Republican midterm losses and two days after Trump named Stephen Miller, whom CBS describes as widely viewed as an architect of the crackdown, as White House chief of staff. CBS News exit polling found 58 percent of voters believed the administration’s immigration actions had gone too far, even as Republicans kept a narrow 43 to 41 percent edge on which party voters trust on the issue, a split that echoes the AP VoteCast results.

A remark is not a memo. On his first day back in office, Trump signed the executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which revoked the Biden-era order on enforcement priorities; DHS then dropped the 2021 guidelines that had told officers to focus on public-safety threats and weigh factors such as length of residence. Since then, anyone who is removable can be arrested, whatever their job or tax record. A real change in the Trump deportation policy would show up on paper, in a new priorities memo, worksite guidance or lower arrest targets. CBS itself reported that it is unclear whether the administration will alter its strategy.

The June 2025 test run. Trump has been here before. In June 2025, after he wrote that farmers and hotel owners were losing good workers, DHS paused enforcement operations at farms, hotels and restaurants, then reversed that guidance within days, ABC7 Los Angeles reported at the time. Presidential sympathy for working immigrants did not survive internal pressure for higher arrest numbers then. With Miller, who CBS says pushed ICE last year to aim for 3,000 arrests a day, now running the West Wing, a formal carve-out for employed immigrants looks less likely than a change in rhetoric.

Who is actually being detained. Data compiled by TRAC at Syracuse University show ICE held 65,765 people in detention as of July 11, 2026, and 46,436 of them, or 70.6 percent, had no criminal conviction. In June 2026 alone, 43,138 people were booked into ICE detention, 39,563 of them arrested by ICE and 3,575 by Customs and Border Protection. Some without convictions may face pending charges, but immigrants whose main violation is their status, the people Trump described, make up most of the detained population.

Only Congress can grant status. Legal status for long-resident workers takes legislation, not a presidential remark. Trump’s offer revives a familiar trade: enforcement measures in exchange for status for a defined group. The last broad attempt, the 2013 Senate bill, passed that chamber 68 to 32 and died in the House. A narrower deal, aimed at long-term workers or at Dreamers, is the more plausible shape, and DACA recipients are the group most often named in past compromise talks.

For individuals, nothing changed on Sunday night. Risk at an ICE check-in, a USCIS interview or a traffic stop is the same as it was last week, and a pending application or a work permit is not lawful status. Employers’ Form I-9 obligations are also unchanged. Miller’s record on enforcement is the better predictor of ICE’s next quarter than a single television answer.

Signals to track:

Any written DHS or ICE guidance on enforcement priorities or worksite operations.
ICE detention and book-in figures for the coming months, which show whether arrest volume falls.
Whether Democratic leaders in the new Congress, seated in January 2027, take up Trump’s offer to negotiate.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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