President-elect Donald Trump has no intention of backing down on his campaign promises and has said that from day one in office he will seek to end birthright citizenship through an executive order that nullifies the right.
In a wide-ranging interview for NBC News' "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker," Trump again said that the United States is the only country that grants birthright citizenship, a fact that is completely false, as more than 30 nations grant such a right.
"We're going to have to get it changed, or maybe it would go back to the people, but we have to end it. We're the only country that has it," he said, noting that he would do that through executive action.
"If we can do it, through executive action. I was going to do it through executive action, but then we had to fix Covid-19 first, to be honest with you," Trump stressed.
The president-elect explained that he does not want to "break up" families through deportations, hence his decision.
"I don't want to be breaking up families, so the only way to not break up the family is to keep them together, and you have to send them all back," he said.
He also said that his administration's mass deportation efforts would focus on people with criminal records, but made it clear that it could go beyond deporting criminals, without specifying who the "other people besides criminals" would be.
"I think we should do it," Trump said when asked by host Kristen Welker if he plans to deport all the people who have entered the country illegally. "It's a very difficult thing to do," he said. "You know, you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally."
On the other hand, the next president, who will take office as president of the United States on January 20, 2025, also said he was willing to work with Democrats to develop a plan to protect the "dreamers," immigrants who were brought to the United States when they were children.
"We have to do something about the Dreamers, because these are people who were brought here at a very young age, and many of them are now middle-aged. They don't even speak the language of their country. And yes, we are going to do something about it," he said.
"I'll 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 get anything done. The Republicans are very open to the Dreamers," he added.
With information from CNN.
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