Texas Border Business
WASHINGTON DC – President Donald Trump acknowledged that his administration’s immigration enforcement policies may have been too tough, particularly toward undocumented immigrants working in hotels, landscaping businesses and other industries, during an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes that aired Sunday, November 8, 2026.
Speaking with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat at the White House on November 6, Trump said his immigration policies had produced mixed political results and said he was interested in negotiating an immigration agreement with Democrats after the midterm elections.
“I’d love to do something on immigration,” Trump said when asked what issue he would consider addressing with the incoming Democratic congressional majority.
Trump defended his administration’s border enforcement efforts but acknowledged that deporting undocumented immigrants who have established working lives in the United States had generated opposition.
“I think it both helped and hurt,” Trump said about immigration’s effect on the midterm elections.
He argued that closing the southern border had strengthened his political standing while removing undocumented immigrants employed in American businesses had created difficulties.
“For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs,” Trump said.
He described workers whose primary immigration violation was entering the country illegally, including those employed by landscaping companies and hotels.
When Douthat asked whether his deportation policies had gone too far, Trump responded, “I think it might be too tough.”
Trump specifically discussed immigration enforcement involving hotel employees who had worked in the United States for years.
“When you go into a hotel, and you say, let me see your pass, and you have a woman that’s worked there as a, you know, as a maid, as a cleaner,” Trump said, describing workers who could face deportation.
“All of a sudden, they’re being taken out of the country. It’s tough. It’s a tough thing.”
Trump said Americans hold differing views about whether undocumented immigrants should be deported regardless of their employment history or allowed to remain under certain conditions.
He described one group favoring widespread deportations and another supporting the removal of people convicted of serious crimes while considering arrangements for longtime workers.
“Let the people that are here and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years work a deal for them,” Trump said, describing the latter position.
Asked whether an agreement could provide some form of legal status, Trump expressed optimism about reaching a compromise.
“We would work something out, and I think it’s something, I think that’s something that’s actually doable,” he said.
Trump also said Democratic lawmakers had already contacted him about immigration, although he did not identify them or provide details of any negotiations.
