President Trump reflects on immigration policy | Dallas News Live

President Trump, looking back at what went wrong in a wide-ranging interview with 60 Minutes Sunday, the president was asked if he thought his immigration policies hurt Republicans. Let's listen. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because... We also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation or breaking of the law, that was that they came into the country illegally. Now, there is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out. 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 working in a hotel or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes. And there's a large group of people think that they should be allowed to stay. So- So you think your deportation policy went too far? I think it was too tough. It was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah. And a lot of people would say that it's great, but a lot of people think it's too tough. Well, the president went on to say that he believes he could work with Democrats on new immigration policies. It's worth noting that shortly after this interview with 60 Minutes Friday, the president named Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff. Miller is seen as the architect of many of the Trump administration's immigration policies. And we are now joined by immigration attorney Kate Lincoln Goldfinch. Kate, good to talk with you again, ma'am. First, your thoughts on the president's 60 Minutes interview. You know, what comes to mind for me being an immigration lawyer in Texas, working with thousands of people over the last year and a half is disappointment and frustration that These thoughts were in the president's head and he could have acted on them all this time. Meanwhile, people have died in detention. People have been shot or run over in the streets. Children have been separated from their parents. Children have been detained. The amount of pain and suffering and economic damage that has occurred because of the president's failure to act on these thoughts since the start of his term is frankly enraging. And there's a reason that there was a blue wave and the way that there wasn't part of it is because the American people feel the same way that I do. And for him to say this on 60 Minutes and then elevate Stephen Miller sends a very mixed message. And so we're gonna have to see how he really behaves moving forward. What would you say? He says he wants to work out a deal with Democrats on immigration. Now, you've talked about creating new immigration policy. In your mind, what would that look like? Well, there's so many things that need to happen. We could start with permanent status for the dreamers. We could start with a pathway to legal status for the undocumented population. We could start with work programs that actually support the needs of our economy. There could be circular work programs. We could expand family-based immigration so that people don't have to wait 25 years to bring their children to this country. We could have orderly asylum processing. We could have We have real humanitarian programs, but ultimately we could decide as a nation that we are a nation of immigrants who needs immigrants and that we will change the rhetoric and we'll stop talking about all of these people as if they are criminals simply because they immigrated and instead talk about our need for them and pass immigration reform. And we have a Congress now that can do that if they can get cooperation from the president, whether they could overcome a veto The veto from the president is another story. It does give me some hope that maybe legislation could move forward, but again, the president's actions aren't matching his words, even this week, even in the same moment that this interview happened. So I'm very skeptical, as are many people, and I think we are right to be skeptical. And that legislation would have to be measured, though. You talked about a number of different Ideas and different things that need to happen, but they'd have to be one at a time and find a priority for how we move forward, yes? Maybe, maybe it could be a comprehensive immigration reform package that contains a lot in one that would be sweeping and very, very late. Actually, we haven't had immigration reform, depending on how you look at it since the 60s or the 80s. And we are in desperate need of it. Our immigration system is broken and it doesn't protect this nation. It doesn't protect our economy, even taking away the humanitarian angle. So it is. Overdue, long overdue immigration reform and maybe this is the moment if the president can get on board with it and if he will do that with Stephen Miller as his chief of staff is a real question because Stephen Miller has been the architect behind all of the cruel policies under Trump. Have you had any conversations with Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa about her ideas around immigration in Texas? Not directly with her, but there are, I can tell you, a lot of conversations with the new leadership in the Democratic Party, lots of ideas, lots of strategy happening behind the scenes, and it is very exciting. You started your law firm there in Austin and then I believe 2015 and over the course of these last years with all that's happened with immigration, you've now become a national firm representing people across the country caught now in this immigration net. How does it get undone, if you will? How do we get back to center on this? Number one is changing the rhetoric. Number one is to stop saying that immigrant is a bad word and to remember that somebody who immigrates to another country is deserving of respect and is contributing to our economy. Then we work toward passing legislation when we can. We stop the police cooperation with ICE under these 287 agreements that changes the role of policing to immigration in a way that we don't want in the state and we never detain children. We should never detain children. There's never a reason for that. So those are some starting points. What are you telling your clients now post the election? I've been giving them some ideas. What I'm actually telling them right now is the new leadership doesn't take over until January. The next couple of months are going to probably, we're going to see a lot of immigration enforcement and family and safety planning is really important. We saw an eight-year-old boy detained at his check-in in San Diego because his father had been deported and his uncle who brought him there didn't have custody. So it's really It's really important to decide who's gonna have authorization to care for your children if you get detained and make sure that they have the proper paperwork because children can get taken away from their parents if that paperwork is not complete. So while we can celebrate and be hopeful and excited about the future, we have to understand that the reality still exists, that immigration enforcement is very heavy and it is very important to have a plan and a safety plan, particularly around the children. All right, Caitlin Goldfinch, thank you so much for sharing with us Dallas News Live this Monday. Thanks for having me.