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House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday that congressional Republicans have no intention of pursuing any sort of amnesty for criminal aliens.

The confirmation on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle” came after the eponymous host revealed that, according to her sources, President-elect Donald Trump’s team believes that the illegal migration problem needs to be resolved by Congress, not by executive action.

Listen:

(Video Credit: Fox News)

“President-elect Trump can do a lot just by executive order, but I do understand from my sources that they want laws passed,” she began. “They don’t want an executive order that can just be thrown away, you know, [in] four years or eight years. They want permanent change.”

Meaning they no longer want a corrupt immigration system wherein people can claim asylum willy-nilly. Trump’s camp is even reportedly interested in possibly eliminating birthright citizenship.

“That would require more thinking and study,” Ingraham said. “But he doesn’t want to just do the executive orders.”

“Is that what your understanding is as well?” she then asked Johnson.

“Yes,” he replied. “Our agenda is to enact this into law. We need real, comprehensive immigration reform. We’ve needed it for a long time.”

Before he could continue, Ingraham cut him off to complain about his use of the phrase “comprehensive immigration reform,” which critics say is an old term that usually indicates some sort of amnesty.

“That sounds like amnesty,” she noted. “Every time I’ve heard Republicans say that it’s like an earned path to citizenship. Then we have 20 million, you know, people who get their citizenship overnight. Every time I hear that, it drives me crazy, but you can explain.”

Johnson responded by reassuring her that this wasn’t what he meant.

“No, no,” he protested. “We want to do the opposite of amnesty. If you do an amnesty program, you invite more people to violate the law. That’s exactly the opposite of what we need to do. We gotta begin on day one with securing the border. President Trump will issue an executive order. He has that authority under existing statutory law.”

“But we’ve got to come right behind him with a robust legislative agenda. We have got to do this for the American people. Secure the border and then turn to the catastrophe that’s been created by the border being open. It is complex, as you know,” he added.

Cutting to the chase, Ingraham then bluntly asked Johnson whether there would be deportations of criminal aliens under the Trump administration.

“Absolutely,” he responded.

“He won on that issue,” Ingraham replied. “That was a big part of this mandate. People have to leave. If they leave, they can reapply maybe later on.”

So how exactly might mass deportations work?

“Experts theorize that the initiative would likely involve Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and arrests at individuals’ homes and workplaces – both steps taken during prior large-scale removal efforts,” according to the Gothamist. “New internment facilities or detention camps could be erected for detained migrants, to house them as their legal cases play out.”

However, it won’t be as easy as just saying “Let’s deport them,” especially if Trump is forced to go the executive action route.

“[T]here are numerous constitutional and logistical barriers, including lack of local cooperation and budgetary restraints, that could hamper Trump’s ability to implement his vision — and would certainly prevent him from doing so on ‘day one,’ as he has pledged,” the Gothamist notes.

“The power of the president is different than his ability to execute that power,” Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow and director of the Migration Policy Institute office at NYU School of Law, told the Gothamist.

Indeed, in New York City, for example, Mayor Eric Adams has already pledged to not work with the Trump administration.

“Mass deportation – that is not going to happen in New York City,” he said at a Monday press conference.

“We will not be following the instructions of the federal government in cases of mass deportations,” Manuel Castro, the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, added.

Vivek Saxena
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