US President Donald Trump has said his immigration crackdown was “too tough”, marking one of his clearest public retreats from a defining plank of his political agenda, following his party’s drubbing in the midterm elections.
In an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes programme, Trump said he believed he deserved an “A plus” for drastically limiting illegal border crossings, but he had been politically “hurt” by sweeping deportations.
His acknowledgement came despite his homeland security department insisting it was not backing away from the crackdown.
Election day polling indicated immigration was the third most important issue for midterm voters, after the economy and the state of democracy.
In historically conservative states like Texas, a swing of Latino voters towards Democrats helped seal the Democratic Party’s landslide majorities in Congress.
The president told 60 Minutes that immigration “both helped and hurt” his fellow Republicans in Tuesday’s midterms.
“I think I got an A plus for closing up the border,” he said in the programme that aired on Sunday evening.
He added: “For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sources told CBS that in recent weeks officials have been instructed to aim for about 2,700 arrests of illegal immigrants per day, an increase from an earlier 2,000 daily arrest target.
