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‘They Came In Illegally’: Trump Clashes With ‘Meet The Press’ Host Over Deportation Promises

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President-elect Donald Trump and “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker clashed over Trump’s promises to deport illegal immigrants during an interview that aired Sunday morning.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump highlighted a series of crimes involving illegal immigrants, including the murders of Rachel Morin, Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray and the struggles experienced by the city of Springfield, Ohio after an influx of over 20,000 Haitian migrants. Trump said that the failure to enforce laws regarding immigration had been “unfair” to legal immigrants.

“I think you have to do it, and it’s a very tough thing to do. But you have to have, you know you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally,” Trump told Welker. “You know, the people who have been treated very unfairly are the people who have been [in] line for 10 years that come into the country and we’re gonna make it very easy for people to come in terms of, they have to pass the test. They have to be able to tell you what the Statue of Liberty is, they have to tell you a little bit about our country, they have to love our country.”

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“They can’t come out of prisons. We don’t want people that are in for murder,” Trump continued. “We had 11,000 and 13,000, different estimates, 13,099, murderers released into our country over the last three years. They’re walking down the streets, they’re walking next to you and your family and they’re very dangerous.”

Welker claimed that the number Trump cited was over 40 years, but Trump pointed to data from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement showing that 13,099 people with homicide convictions were among those not detained. Trump and Welker also clashed over reports of gangs of illegal immigrants taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado.

“We’re getting the worst gang, probably, with MS-13 and the Venezuelan gangs are the worst in the world. They’re vicious, violent people. And you see what they’ve done in Colorado and other places, they’re taking over, literally taking over apartment complexes and doing it with impunity. They don’t care. I tell you, they are in the real estate business-”

“The local police say that that is not the case in Colorado,” Welker claimed, with Trump responding, “That is totally the case.”

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado initially denied that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) had taken over an apartment complex in Aurora, despite a local TV station airing video of the gang’s activity, calling it the product of a local leader’s “imagination.” Emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that residents and local leaders warned about TdA’s presence in Aurora, but the warnings were dismissed by Mayor Mike Coffman.

CBZ Management, which runs the apartment complex where the video was taken, told the DCNF that one employee was assaulted by the gang in November 2023.

The Border Patrol encountered over 8.5 million people on the U.S.-Mexico border since the start of fiscal year 2021, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).