President-elect Donald Trump said this week that his incoming administration has “no choice” but to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants, regardless of how much it may cost.
Speaking with NBC News on Thursday, the president-elect was asked about how much it would cost to carry out his deportation plan, which he made reference to numerous times during his presidential campaign.
“It’s not a question of a price tag,” Trump said, adding that “really, we have no choice.”
“When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries. And now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”
His campaign had pledged to expel about 11 million people who are not authorized to be in the United States, although Trump himself has said he believes that as many as 21 million are in the country illegally.
“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful, and we have to—at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he said before signaling that the United States still needs legal immigrants.