President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the White House on November 4, 2026. Photo: The White House, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
President Donald Trump on Monday firmly ruled out any immigration deal that includes amnesty for people living in the United States illegally, shutting down speculation that his administration might soften its hard-line deportation policy after last week's midterm elections.
"There won't be amnesty," Trump told reporters at the White House. "Somebody suggested, will there be amnesty? No, but — they came in. They knew the law."
Trump defended his administration's deportation policy as "very strong" and insisted nothing had changed. "My policy hasn't changed," he said, adding that enforcement would continue to focus on removing "the worst of the worst."
A swift reversal after Sunday's softer tone
The remarks marked a sharp turn from just a day earlier. In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes," Trump said "killers" and "drug dealers" in the country illegally should be deported, but suggested he was open to a deal that would let others stay "if they're good people working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel, or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes."
That hint of flexibility set off a round of speculation that the White House might be preparing to negotiate with Democrats on immigration — speculation Trump moved quickly to close down on Monday.
Trump rode back into power with a promise to crack down on immigration, and during the first two years of his second term arrests of immigrants surged, including through high-profile operations in large US cities that sometimes turned violent.
Mullin: amnesty is "a full stop"
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin delivered the same message earlier on Monday, even as he said he has been fielding calls from Democrats interested in working on immigration policy.
"Amnesty's never going to be a solution. We're never gonna allow amnesty to happen. So that's a full stop," Mullin told reporters on the sidelines of a conference near Washington, DC.
Mullin said he had told the president about the Democratic outreach and that Trump had said "let's start working with them," but he stressed that the two had not yet discussed any concrete policy changes. Mullin, a former senator and House representative who became Homeland Security secretary earlier this year, said a bipartisan approach was the only way to get anything done — just not one that includes amnesty.
The secretary also raised the issue of DACA, the program protecting people brought to the country illegally as children. Figuring out a way to legalize their status, he said, would be up to Congress.
Asked whether he had spoken with Stephen Miller — the architect of his immigration crackdown, whom Trump has newly promoted to chief of staff — about immigration changes, Trump said no. Mullin last week called Miller an "excellent choice" for the role.
A divided Congress, and a midterm warning
The comments from both men reflected the mixed messaging coming out of the administration in the aftermath of the midterm elections, and underlined how complicated it will be for a new Congress controlled by Democrats to find any common ground on immigration.
The midterms highlighted voters' disaffection with the administration's hard-line enforcement. Nationally, about six in 10 voters said the Trump administration's actions on immigration enforcement had "gone too far," according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 midterm voters. A similar share disapproved of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement was doing its job.
Immigration has long been one of the most intractable issues facing Congress. Any deal that gives people in the country illegally a pathway to resolve their status is often characterized by anti-immigration critics as amnesty, while advocates say longtime immigrants who have lived in the US for years, worked and raised families there, deserve a way to come out of the shadows and legalize their status.
For now, the White House line is clear: enforcement stays, and amnesty is off the table.
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Times Now World.