President-elect Donald Trump said there’s no “price tag” when it comes to his mass deportation proposal.
“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he told NBC News Thursday. “And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”
Asked about the cost, he told the news outlet: “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — 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.”
Trump, who handily beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election Tuesday, is expected to mobilize agencies across the U.S. government to help him deport record numbers of immigrants, building on efforts in his first term to tap all available resources and pressure so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions to cooperate, according to six former Trump officials and allies.
Trump backers — including some who could enter his second administration — anticipate the Republican president-elect will call on everyone from the U.S. military to diplomats overseas to turn his campaign promise of mass deportations into a reality. The effort would include cooperation with Republican-led states and use federal funding as leverage against resistant jurisdictions.
A mass deportation effort aimed at removing 13 million immigrants illegally in the U.S. would cost at least $315 billion, according to an October study by the American Immigration Council.