Trump: ‘No Path To Legalization,’ ‘Unless They Leave the Country and Come Back,’ We’ll ‘See What Happens’ Once Border’s Secured

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During an interview broadcast on Thursday’s “AC 360” on CNN that “there is no path to legalization” for people who are in the US illegally and haven’t committed any crimes, “unless they leave the country and come back.” And “We’re going to see what happens once we strengthen our border.”

Trump began by saying wasn’t “going to go into all” of his immigration policy “because we’re doing a speech on in a week immigration, which I think will explain it in even greater detail.”

He later stated that after criminal illegal aliens are deported, and the border is secured, “we’re going to see what happens.”

He added that “[Y]ou can’t take 11 [million] at one time and just say, boom, you’re gone. We have to find where these people are. Most people don’t even know where they are. Nobody even knows if it’s 11. It could be 30, and it could be five.”

He was then asked if there would be a path to legalization for illegal immigrants who haven’t committed a crime, to which he said, “No, there’s not a path. There is no path to legalization, unless people leave the country — well, when they come back in, if they come back in, then they can start paying taxes, but there is no path to legalization, unless they leave the country and come back.”

Trump added that “using the existing laws, millions of people are deported, every year. … But you have a lot of people being deported. We’re going to do that vigorously, we’re going to go with the laws that are existing.”

He was asked, “So, if you haven’t committed a crime and you’ve been here for 15 years and you have a family here, you have a job here, will you be deported?”

Trump answered, “We’re going to see what happens once we strengthen our border. … But there is a very good chance the answer could be yes, we’re going to see what happens. … We are not going to allow drugs to come into this country and poison our youth, and then we’re going to see what happens, but there’s no legalization. There’s no amnesty. And if somebody wants to go legalization route, what they’ll do is they’ll go, leave the country, hopefully come back in, and then we can talk. And one other thing, there are millions of people right now, online, trying to come into our country. It’s very unfair to them, some of the rules, regulations, and policies that I’ve seen. These are millions of people that want to come into our country legally, and it would be very unfair to them.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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