US President-elect Donald Trump has said he will deport or jail up to three million illegal migrants initially.
Those targeted would be migrants with criminal records, such as gang members and drug dealers, he told US broadcaster CBS in an interview.
He also confirmed that another election promise, to build a wall with Mexico, still stood but could include fencing.
For the first time since winning the US presidency, Donald Trump has put a number on how many people he plans to deport from US soil – up to 3 million.
Although he says this group is comprised of violent criminals, drug-dealers and gang members, to hit such a high mark would involve either casting a very wide net that covers even the smallest infractions or also deporting legal alien residents of the US with criminal convictions.
An expanded “deportation force” would almost certainly be necessary, but Mr Trump’s advisers have spent the past few days downplaying the prospect of such an organisation.
There are around 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, many of them from Mexico.
Mr Trump pledged during the election campaign to overturn amnesties introduced by President Obama, and strictly enforce immigration laws, deporting those without correct documents.
In his first major interview to a US broadcaster since the election, Mr Trump told CBS: “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.”
Mr Trump added that after the border is “secure,” immigration officials will begin to make a “determination” about the remaining undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Trump said “After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, 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,” he said. “But before we make that determination…it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”
Mr Trump also has curtailed the scope of his “big, beautiful” border wall, acknowledging that it could be a fence in some areas.
Asked about his plans for the Mexican border, he said “a wall is more appropriate” in some parts but “there could be some fencing”,
Proposing a multi-billion-dollar wall and mass deportations is easy. Delivering, in the face of fiscal realities and opposition within one’s own party, is a different matter entirely.
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