President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that he could approve an amnesty arrangement for many migrants currently working in jobs that otherwise would be held by Americans. The comments came during an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.
The interview took place shortly before Trump fired his establishment minded chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and replaced her with Stephen Miller, his populist adviser. The personnel change puts a leading advocate of immigration enforcement at the center of the White House operation.
“I’d love to do something about immigration,” Trump told the program while describing [1] the outlines of a possible agreement with Democrats who support migration.
Trump said dangerous offenders should be removed, but he left the door open for others. “But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for ten and 15 years, work a deal for them.”
He suggested migrants holding jobs could be allowed to remain under such an arrangement. “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?”
Trump also pointed to migrants who pay taxes and said a large group of Americans believes they should be permitted to stay. His comments focused particularly on workers in hotels, landscaping companies, and similar businesses.
“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 repeatedly dangled vague immigration agreements during negotiations with business groups and Democratic lawmakers. He has later abandoned such proposals after encountering opposition from his enforcement minded political base.
The political backdrop is also loaded with pressure, as Trump and his family face hostile investigations and threats from Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. That gives them an incentive to raise Democratic hopes for a broad amnesty agreement that could strengthen the party’s power.
Trump acknowledged that many of his supporters reject 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.
President Trump says his administration’s deportation policy was “too tough.” https://t.co/4EQsg4QA8c https://t.co/JDcqgRAySp
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 9, 2026 [2]
That group likely includes Miller and more than half of the electorate, according to polling cited in the report. A February 2026 Harvard Harris poll found that 57% of all Americans and 79% of Republicans wanted every illegal migrant sent home.
Strong support for enforcement helped Trump win elections in 2016 and 2024, and it remains central to his political influence ahead of his retirement following the 2028 election. Polls promoted by migration advocacy groups can push deportation support below 50% by adding conditions involving English proficiency or back taxes.
The amnesty talk also puts attention on the Democrats’ immigration agenda only days after their blowout election victory. Democrats won partly by keeping their support for an unpopular, wealth shifting amnesty out of the spotlight.
Many Americans recognize that migration can be used by employers and investors to reduce wages and enable workplace abuse. Wall Street investors, for example, can collect higher franchise fees and rents when hotel operators import cheap Indian migrants to clean rooms and operate kitchens.
Miller may attempt to move deportation enforcement away from highly visible arrests and toward quiet pressure on employers, banks, and landlords. Trump immigration adviser Tom Homan has long supported that approach.
Political talk about amnesty can immediately encourage migrants to move north and can prompt employers to shield their illegal migrant workforces. That could damage the wage growth Trump needs to regain support from swing voters who stayed home during the 2026 election.
Just like that, a migrant caravan of dozens of Hondurans departed San Pedro Sula on Tuesday, November 3, bound for the United States. https://t.co/Atln7jxs2j
— Steve Gruber (@stevegrubershow) November 4, 2026 [3]
Trump said his immigration record both helped and hurt during the midterm elections. He credited the closed border and the removal of dangerous migrants, but said voters objected when workers whose only violation was entering the country illegally were removed.
“I think [the deportation policy] might be too tough, yeah,” Trump said. His base also failed to turn out amid anger over his decision to launch a war against Iran, while Latino voters surged against Republican candidates.
At the same time, other data indicated that migration helped motivate Republican voters. Trump’s latest amnesty overture now threatens to reopen a familiar fight between business interests, Democrats seeking a sweeping agreement, and the ordinary Americans who powered his enforcement agenda.