Donald Trump Vows to Immediately Deport Up to 3 Million Immigrants

Donald Trump. (Photo: AP)

In line with his hardline immigration stance, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to immediately deport up to three million undocumented immigrants, saying "we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate".

What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.

Donald Trump

"But we're getting them out of our country, they're here illegally," the 70-year-old business tycoon-turned politician said in an excerpt released ahead of broadcast of the interview.

However, House Speaker and top Republican leader Paul Ryan, striking a different tone, said that despite Trump's campaign rhetoric, lawmakers are not prepared to form a deportation force to round-up and deport undocumented immigrants.

"We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump's not planning on that," said Ryan.

I think we should put people’s minds at ease: That is not what our focus is. That is not what we’re focused on. We’re focused on securing the border. We think that’s first and foremost, before we get into any other immigration issue, we’ve got to know who’s coming and going into the country – we’ve got to secure the border.

Paul Ryan

During the election campaign, Trump had warned that those countries which do not accept these illegal immigrants, he would enforce the legal provision of stopping of issuing of visas to the people of those countries.

There are an estimated 11 million documented immigrants in the country. Several hundred thousand are believed to be Indian-Americans.

The President-elect said he would take a call on the fate of the rest of the illegal immigrants, after the border is secured.

After the border is secure and after everything gets normalised, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people but we are gonna make a determination at that.

Donald Trump