Donald Trump has said there is “no price tag” for his campaign promise of mass deportations.
The US president-elect said one of his priorities upon taking office in January was to make the US border “strong and powerful”, part of what he said was a mandate “to bring common sense” to America following his election victory over Kamala Harris.
As a candidate, Mr Trump often said he would begin the “largest deportation effort in American history”.
Image: Mr Trump said he had a ‘very respectful’ talk with vice president Kamala Harris. Pic: AP
Speaking to NBC News, Sky’s US partner, he dismissed concerns about the cost of his plan, saying “it’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not – really, we have no choice”.
He also pointed to what he has identified as issues of crime linked to immigration, saying that when people “have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag”.
“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful, and we have to – at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he added.
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“And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘no, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”
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What will Trump 2.0 look like?
It’s difficult to know how many undocumented immigrants there are in the US, but Patrick J Lechleitner, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told NBC News in July that a mass deportation effort would be a huge logistical and financial challenge.
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In the election, the Republican candidate enjoyed gains among Latino voters, whom many believed would reject him over his anti-immigration rhetoric and racist jokes about Puerto Rico made by a comedian at his rally at Madison Square Garden last month.
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Rather than losing him votes, Mr Trump indicated on Thursday that his own tough stance and his message on immigration was partly responsible for his win.
Mr Trump said: “They want to have borders, and they like people coming in, but they have to come in with love for the country. They have to come in legally.”
He also mentioned the gains he made from 2020 among young voters, women, and Asian American voters, accusing Democrats of not being in line “with the thinking of the country”.
The president-elect also discussed the phone conversations he had with Ms Harris and US President Joe Biden since the election, calling them “very nice” and “very respectful both ways”.
He said the US vice president “talked about transition, and she said she’d like it to be smooth as can be, which I agree with, of course”.
US vice president JD Vance has met with Pope Francis.
The “quick and private” meeting took place at the Pope’s residence, Casa Santa Marta, in Vatican City, sources told Sky News.
The meeting came amid tensions between the Vatican and the Trump administration over the US president’s crackdown on migrants and cuts to international aid.
No further details have been released on the meeting between the vice president and the Pope, who has been recovering following weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.
Mr Vance, who is in Rome with his family, also met with the Vatican’s number two, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
The Vatican said there had been “an exchange of opinions” over international conflicts, migrants and prisoners.
According to a statement, the two sides had “cordial talks” and the Vatican expressed satisfaction with the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting freedom of religion and conscience.
“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees and prisoners,” the statement said.
Francis has previously called the Trump administration’s deportation plans a “disgrace”.
Mr Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, has cited medieval-era Catholic teaching to justify the immigration crackdown.
The pope rebutted the theological concept Mr Vance used to defend the crackdown in an unusual open letter to the US Catholic bishops about the Trump administration in February, and called Mr Trump’s plan a “major crisis” for the US.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” the Pope said in the letter.
Mr Vance has acknowledged Francis’s criticism but said he would continue to defend his views. During an appearance in late February at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, he did not address the issue specifically but called himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledged there were “things about the faith that I don’t know”.
While he had criticised Francis on social media in the past, recently he has posted prayers for the pontiff’s recovery.
The Democrat senator who flew to meet the man wrongly deported to El Salvador has said photos of them with margaritas were staged by officials working for the country’s president.
Chris Van Hollen added that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported from the US last month, told him he has been moved from a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador to a detention centre with better conditions.
The deportation of Mr Garcia has become a flashpoint in the US, with Democrats casting it as a cruel consequence of Donald Trump’s disregard for the courts, while Republicans have criticised Democrats for defending him and argued his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.
Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, is being detained in the Central American country despite the US Supreme Court calling on the White House to facilitate his return home.
Trump officials have said Mr Garcia has ties to the violent MS-13 gang. However, Mr Garcia’s attorneys say the government has provided no evidence, and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.
Mr Van Hollen flew to El Salvador and met with Mr Garcia this week in an effort to help secure his return to America.
Image: Chris Van Hollen and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, seen in a photo shared by El Salvador’s president. Pic: Nayib Bukele on X
Image: Van Hollen (right) says margaritas were later brought to the table. Pic: Press Office Senator Van Hollen/AP
Speaking to reporters at Washington Dulles International airport after returning to the US on Friday, Mr Van Hollen said: “As the federal courts have said, we need to bring Mr Abrego Garcia home to protect his constitutional rights to due process. And it’s also important that people understand this case is not just about one man.
“It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America.”
Mr Van Hollen added the Trump administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country” in foreign prisons “without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order”.
Don’t let the PR battle cloud the real human story
What began as the plight of a Salvadoran man wrongly deported from the US to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador has become a much broader debate.
The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia now ranges from the extremely serious – questions over the rule of law, due process and a potential constitutional crisis – to the more curious matter of tequila-based cocktails.
There is a public relations battle going on over the images which emerged of Mr Abrego Garcia meeting Maryland Senator Chris van Hollen at a hotel in San Salvador.
In the first photos which were made public, on the social media account of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, an ally of Donald Trump, the two men had cocktail glasses in front of them which he said were margaritas.
But when Senator van Hollen posted his account of the meeting, those glasses had vanished. So what’s this all about, and why does it matter?
The senator has now given his version of events, saying the glasses were placed there by an El Salvador government official to mock concerns about the conditions in the country’s prison – a photo op aimed at shifting the narrative around Mr Abrego Garcia’s detention in El Salvador.
Mr van Hollen also revealed El Salvador officials initially wanted the meeting to take place next to a swimming pool, to give an even more tropical backdrop to the encounter.
But at the end of the day, it’s not just about images, it’s not about public relations, it’s not even about margaritas. It’s about a 29-year-old father of three, detained in El Salvador, despite having never gone through due process in the US.
The senator also revealed Mr Garcia was brought from a detention centre to his hotel after initial requests to meet or speak with him were denied.
Mr Van Hollen said Mr Garcia told him he was “traumatised” after being detained at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, but he had been moved to a “different facility” with better conditions nine days ago.
The senator said Mr Garcia told him he was worried about his family and that thinking about them was giving him “the strength to persevere” and to “keep going” under awful circumstances.
Mr Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, was at the news conference and wiped away tears as Mr Van Hollen spoke of her husband’s desire to speak to her.
Earlier, Mr Van Hollen had posted photos of himself meeting with Mr Garcia.
Image: Chris Van Hollen speaks at Washington Dulles International Airport. Pic: AP
It came before El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared his own images of the meeting, which he claimed showed the pair “sipping margaritas” in the “tropical paradise of El Salvador”.
In an apparent sarcastic remark, Mr Bukele wrote that Mr Garcia had “miraculously risen” from the “death camps”.
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Giving an account of what he says happened when the photos were taken, Mr Van Hollen said: “We just had glasses of water on the table. I think maybe some coffee.
“And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice. And I don’t know if it was salt or sugar round the top, but they looked like margaritas.
“If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmer, it actually had a little less liquid than the one in me in front of me to try to make it look, I assume like he drank out of it.
“Let me just be very clear. Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us.”
He added that people can tell he is telling the truth because if someone had sipped from one of the glass there would be a “gap” where the “salt or sugar” had disappeared.
Mr Van Hollen said the image shows the “lengths” the El Salvadorian president will go to “deceive people about what’s going on”.
“It also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and [President Trump] will go to, because when he was asked by a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride.”