Trump says he will deport or imprison up to 3m immigrants

US president-elect Donald Trump said he will deport or imprison up to three million undocumented immigrants when he takes office next year.

Mr Trump said the authorities would round up undocumented immigrants with criminal records – a group he estimated at between two and three million people – but would later “make a determination” on those, including thousands of Irish, who are undocumented but have an otherwise clean record.

"What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records – gang members, drug dealers . . . we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate," he said in an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday. Only then, with the border secured and "everything normalised", would he decide on a plan to deal with the "terrific people" who are in the US illegally but have clean criminal histories.

In his campaign for the Republican nomination, Mr Trump pledged to deport all undocumented immigrants and said he would create a deportation force to achieve that goal. In a separate interview on Sunday, House speaker Paul Ryan distanced himself from that rhetoric. “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that,” said Mr Ryan. “I think we should put people’s minds at ease: that is not what our focus is.”

‘Removable criminal aliens’

Figures from the department of homeland security and the Migration Policy Institute suggest there are 1.9 million "removable criminal aliens" in the US, a group that includes any non-citizens – legal residents and undocumented immigrants – with a criminal conviction. Of that number, about 820,000 are undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime, the Washington Post reported. In president Barack Obama's first term, his administration deported a record 1.9 million people.

Asked if some stretches of his border wall with Mexico would consist of fencing, as suggested by congressional Republicans, Mr Trump said: "For certain areas I would [consider it], but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I'm very good at this," the businessman added. "It's called construction."

Mr Trump is expected to announce the first key appointees to his administration in the coming days as he begins the process of filling 4,000 political vacancies in the federal government.

Mr Trump reorganised his transition team, removing New Jersey governor Chris Christie as head of the executive council and replacing him with vice-president-elect Mike Pence. The team includes key Trump allies such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions.

Mr Trump’s comments on immigration came as demonstrators took to the streets for a fifth day in protest against the incoming president. Crowds marched through New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and other cities, decrying Mr Trump’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric as well as the allegations that the property magnate sexually abused women.

‘Incited’

On Twitter, Mr Trump initially said the protesters” were “incited” by media but later praised the demonstrators’ “passion for our great country”.

In a separate interview on Saturday, Mr Trump appeared to soften his stance on a number of sweeping campaign pledges, saying that he might not repeal but rather "amend" Obamacare and that prosecuting Hillary Clinton over confidential emails was not a priority.

Some 60.3 million people voted for Mr Trump, fewer than the 60.8 million who chose Mrs Clinton, according to the latest count. But Mr Trump’s strong showing in swing states gave him a comfortable majority of electoral college votes.