Trump to 'deport up to three million immigrants'

 

US president-elect in his first interview since election says he plans to deport or jail undocumented foreigners.

"We are getting them [immigrants with criminal records] out of our country," Trump says [Reuters]

US President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to immediately deport or jail as many as three million undocumented immigrants, as he set out his priorities in the first television interview since his election.

The interview with US television CBS's "60 Minutes" is to be broadcast on Sunday as millions were expected to tune in for clues on how the billionaire businessman turned politician will govern the country.

Since Tuesday's election triumph, Trump had appeared to tone down his rhetoric, notably suggesting he might be willing to reconsider a pledge to scrap President Barack Obama's signature health reform, the so-called Obamacare.

However, he made clear in excerpts of Sunday's interview that he still intended to crack down on undocumented immigrants in the country, focusing on people with criminal records.

"What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people - probably two million, it could be even three million - we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate," Trump said.

Trump's stance his deportation plans stood in opposition with comments by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said on Sunday the focus under a Trump administration would be on securing the border, not rounding up immigrants.

Trump also said he would keep his promise to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, but said part of it could be a fence, as some members of Congress have suggested.

"There could be some fencing," he said in the interview, but in other areas "a wall is more appropriate".

Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington DC, said that there is no question about having a barrier on the border or not, but the discussion is about what form it will take as Trump insisted that it would largely be a physical wall, not a fence.