President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration insurance policies made their option to the White Home garden on Wednesday, when he stopped to ask staff who helped set up large flagpoles at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. about their immigration standing.
The remarks, showing to be made in jest, got here after a reporter requested the president about his administration’s deportation efforts.
“We’re taking them out by the hundreds. Murderers, drug sellers, individuals which are mentally insane, from insane asylums,” Trump started earlier than turning to the row of arduous hat-wearing building staff standing behind him in the course of the press convention.
“Do now we have anyone right here who’s a member of — no, I do not assume so. You have identified these individuals for a very long time?” he requested. “Any unlawful immigrants?”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media accompanied by staff in the course of the set up of a brand new flagpole on the South Garden on the White Home in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The development staff shook their heads, with a couple of chuckling, when Trump added, “If there have been, we’ll discover out.”
“Your complete life shall be destroyed due to this press convention. They will destroy these individuals. I did not wish to inform them that earlier than they stood up,” Trump mentioned.
“Don’t fret, I believe you are gonna be OK,” the president advised the employees.
The press convention on Wednesday got here after the employees erected two 88-foot-tall flagpoles, one on the North Garden and one on the South Garden, at Trump’s course.
Trump mentioned in a social media submit on Tuesday that the flagpoles have been a present from him to the White Home, which he mentioned “was all the time lacking from this magnificent place.”
“These are essentially the most magnificent poles made – They’re tall, tapered, rust proof, rope contained in the pole, and of the very best high quality,” Trump wrote. “Hopefully, they’ll proudly stand at each side of the White Home for a few years to return!”
Trump’s feedback come because the president has instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to do “all of their energy” to supervise the biggest mass deportation program in historical past.
“In an effort to obtain this, we should develop efforts to detain and deport Unlawful Aliens in America’s largest Cities corresponding to Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, the place Hundreds of thousands upon Hundreds of thousands of Unlawful Aliens reside,” Trump wrote in a prolonged social media submit over the weekend.
