President Trump: Deportations Are A 'Military Operation'

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump referred to recent deportation efforts as a "military operation" Thursday during a meeting with business leaders.

Raids conducted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement against undocumented immigrants in recent months have garnered national attention. And under executive orders from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, has released plan to hire thousands of additional border patrol agents and lower the bar for deporting undocumented immigrants. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

"We're getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobody's ever seen before," Trump said at the meeting. "And they're the bad ones. And it's a military operation."

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly told reporters that under his department there would be no "use of military force in immigration operations. None."

In a press briefing Thursday afternoon, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that Trump's comments did not refer to actual use of military forces to deport immigrants, but instead referred to the "flawless" precision with which immigration policy was carried out.

Watch Trump's comments below:

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Photo by John Moore/Getty News Images/Getty Images