President Donald Trump signaled in a recent interview that he won't be backing down on immigration enforcement raids across the country, despite divided public opinion and intensifying legal pushback.

In an interivew with CBS' “60 Minutes” that aired Nov. 2, host Norah O’Donnell asked Trump whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had gone too far in recent operations. She specifically addressed viral incidents in which agents tackled a mother, used tear gas in a Chicago neighborhood and smashed car windows.

Trump brushed off the criticisms and doubled down on his far-reaching immigration crackdown.

"I think they haven't gone far enough," Trump said. "Because we've been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama."

Since early June, Trump has led a crackdown in the name of addressing illegal immigration and violent crime, sending immigration enforcement agents and National Guard troops into a growing number of Democratic-led cities despite the objections of local officials and dozens of protests.

Polling in recent weeks shows opinion on the expanded ICE operations is largely split, especially along party lines.

A September New York Times poll found 51% of Americans said the president's actions on immigration enforcement have gone too far, though 54% said they "somewhat" or "strongly" support the deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally.

And in surveys released in the last few days, support remained divided, with one poll finding 46% of Americans disapprove of the operations and 45% approve, and another finding consistently strong support among Republicans.

O’Donnell followed up by asking if Trump was OK with some of the tactics and behavior from ICE agents she referenced, prompting the president to repeat claims casting immigrants in the country illegally as violent criminals. Statistics show that migrants are far less likely to commit crimes than American citizens, and federal statistics as of June show that fewer than half of detained migrants have criminal records.

"Yeah, because you have to get the people out," Trump said. "You have to look at the people. Many of them are murderers. Many of them are people that were thrown out of their countries because they were, you know, criminals."

Trump has deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago, Portland, Oregan and Memphis, Tennessee, on what he has described as crime fighting missions. The most recent data from the FBI shows violent crime dropped by 4.5% last year, a two-year downward trend.

The deployments have faced strong opposition from local officials, who have called the moves unnecessary and authoritarian, and are being challenged in court.

The president continues to press ahead, telling military leaders in a recent speech that he wants to use troops to fight "the enemy within."

Contributing: Zac Anderson and Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY.

Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will ICE raids get worse? Trump says they 'haven't gone far enough'

Reporting by Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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