Brian Kilmeade Says He's 'Not for' Deporting Immigrants Here 40 Years

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said Thursday that he opposes deporting undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades. It was a narrow but pointed break with the Trump administration's enforcement campaign, two days after Republicans took heavy losses in the midterms.

On The Brian Kilmeade Show, the host blamed part of Tuesday's defeat on the way the crackdown was carried out. He singled out "chasing people around the streets" and the two fatal shootings by federal agents in Minnesota earlier this year.

"I think you're just scooping them up and kicking them out after 40 years. I'm not for that," Kilmeade said.

Brian Kilmeade on Deportations and the Midterms

Kilmeade raised the subject while discussing Republican redistricting. He said party strategists had not anticipated "some of the resentment that grew and some of the loss of the Hispanic vote."

"Chasing people around the streets, the two shootings that took place in Minneapolis, really rubbed people the wrong way," he said. He added that the reaction reached Republicans and Trump supporters who back removing people in the country illegally.

He then turned to long-settled immigrants. "People that have been in the country 30, 40 years might be illegal, and they're running restaurants, their kids are in schools. They're being deported. And I don't really think that that works for anybody either," he said.

Kilmeade did not argue against enforcement in general. "If you want to make sure that they don't have citizenship because they came here the wrong way, of course, make it with extended work visas, make penalties," he said. He also acknowledged that not everyone on his side agrees: "Some conservatives and Trumpers have told me, no, no, I'm for that."

Later in the same episode, Kilmeade's guest Trey Gowdy, the former South Carolina congressman and Fox News host, made a related point. "No doubt the President had a mandate for border security," Gowdy said. One of the things he listed was "calling Americans that are shot in the street domestic terrorists, none of that was Donald Trump."

The Shootings in Minnesota

Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minnesota earlier this year, during the federal immigration crackdown known as Operation Metro Surge, CBS News reported.

The administration has framed its enforcement broadly from the start. "President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now," a DHS statement attributed to spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in February 2025.

How Long Unauthorized Immigrants Have Lived in the U.S.

The group Kilmeade described is not small. About 4.3 million unauthorized immigrant adults had lived in the U.S. for 18 years or more in 2023, according to Pew Research Center estimates. That is more than a third of the adult unauthorized population. Pew also counted about 4.6 million U.S.-citizen children living with unauthorized immigrant parents.

Hispanic Voters Swing Back

Tuesday's results back up Kilmeade's point about Hispanic voters. Only about a third of Hispanic voters backed the Republican in their House race this year, and about 6 in 10 backed the Democrat, according to the AP Voter Poll, a survey of about 80,000 voters. Roughly 4 in 10 Hispanic voters had backed Trump in 2024.

Still, the same survey found that immigration was not a top concern for most voters. Only about 1 in 10 named it as the country's most important issue, and Republicans kept a small edge on which party voters trust to handle it.

Trump's overall approval stands at 38.2 percent, with 58.7 percent disapproving, according to PolitiKool's polling average.

What Comes Next

The new Democratic majorities arrive in January. It is not yet clear whether the White House will change its enforcement priorities before then.