Trump on 60 Minutes Dangles Amnesty for Illegal Aliens Working in Jobs

President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that he could OK an amnesty for many migrants now working in jobs that would otherwise be held by Americans. The interview was conducted shortly before he fired his establishment-minded chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and replaced her with his pro-American populist adviser, Stephen Miller. “I’d love to do something about immigration,” Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes, as he sketched an amnesty deal with pro-migration Democrats: Get the killers out. Get all the rough ones out. Get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for ten and 15 years, work a deal for them. Illegal migrants who are working in jobs could stay, he suggested: Now, there is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out. And there’s a large part of the country that think that they should be allowed to stay if they’re good people working in a landscaping company, or workin’ in a hotel, or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes. And there’s a large group of people who think that they should be allowed to stay. … That’s something that’s actually doable … When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there, you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress, a lotta good things, great jobs, and all of a sudden, they’re being taken outta the country, it’s tough. It’s a tough thing. Trump has a long history of dangling vague immigration deals in his periodic negotiations with business groups and Democratic legislators, and later dropping the proposals amid the public pushback from his pro-enforcement base of ordinary Americans. He and his family are now facing numerous hostile investigations and threats from the Democrats’ House and Senate majorities. So they face a political incentive to raise their hopes for a sweeping amnesty deal that would lock in Democratic power for a generation. Trump also told 60 Minutes that many of his supporters oppose any amnesty: “There’s a group of people that I would say on the sort of pretty far right that would like everybody taken out,” he said. That group likely includes his new Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, plus more than half of the electorate, according to polls. For example, 57 percent of all Americans — and 79 percent of Republicans — want all illegal migrants sent home, according to a Harvard Harris poll in February 2026. That vast support for enforcement was the key to Trump winning elections in 2016 and 2024 — and is key to his political influence even after his retirement following the 2028 election. Push-polls by pro-migration groups, however, can reduce those pro-deportation shares below 50 percent by adding unenforceable conditions and concessions, such as rules requiring migrants to speak English or pay back taxes. Trump’s offer to talk amnesty also spotlights the Democrats’ concealed radical agenda just a few days after their blowout election. Democrats won, in part, by suppressing their desire for a radical, unpopular, and wealth-shifting amnesty. Many Americans recognize that migration is used by investors and employers to cut wages and enable workplace abuse. For example, Wall Street investors earn higher franchise fees and rents when hotel operators can import cheap Indian migrants to clean rooms and operate kitchens. Trump’s new chief of staff, Miller, may switch Trump’s deportation policy from high-profile public arrests to quiet backroom pressure on employers, banks, and landlords. That policy has long been pushed by Trump’s immigration adviser, Tom Homan. Moreover, political chatter about amnesties immediately encourages the northward movement of migrants that will grab news headlines. Talk of amnesty now will also encourage employers to protect their huge illegal-migrant workforces, so damaging the wage growth that Trump needs to rebuild support among swing voters who did not vote in the 2026 election. The Democrats have a longer history of rejecting cautious compromises in the hope of getting a so-called big “comprehensive” amnesty that would lock Republicans out of U.S. politics. But their ambitious goals have repeatedly failed, partly because their coalition contains deep divisions. Trump described how his migration policy impacted the midterm elections: I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A+ for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I get hurt because we also took [illegal migrant] people that had good jobs, … [had] one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally. “I think [the deportation policy] might be too tough, yeah,” he said. Trump lost the election partly because his base did not turn out amid anger about his decision to launch a war against Iran. There was a surge of Latino voters against Republican candidates, but there is also much data that migration helped turn out many Republican supporters.