President Donald Trump has admitted authorising Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, stating in a 60 Minutes interview that the operations “haven’t gone far enough”. The interview, set to air in full on Sunday evening, saw the president confronted by anchor Norah O’Donnell about the agency’s aggressive tactics over the past ten months.
O’Donnell referenced specific incidents, including an ICE agent tackling a crying woman to the ground in a Manhattan immigration courthouse in September, in front of her two young children. The agent was subsequently relieved of his duties. When asked if he was “okay with those tactics”, Trump replied: “Yeah, because you have to get the people out. Many of them are murderers.”
The president blamed “liberal judges” appointed by former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for hindering his administration’s efforts. According to a review by Politico, more than 100 federal judges have ruled against the administration’s immigration policies at least 200 times, finding them to violate rights or be “flatly illegal”.
This is Trump’s first appearance on 60 Minutes in five years. He sued the network in November 2024 over alleged deceptive editing of an interview with Kamala Harris, but settled for $16 million in July.
