Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the Trump administration’s proposed deportations would be “an absolute gut punch” to the U.S. economy.

Partial transcript as follows: 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about immigration. You’re a former governor. Incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has said that there will be massive deportation raids beginning as soon as Mr. Trump takes office. There are just about 300,000 undocumented individuals believed to be living in your state, according to Pew Research. And I know your current governor, Youngkin, has pledged to fully support efforts through state law enforcement or the National Guard. How do you think this is going to work?

KAINE: Well, I don’t exactly know how the administration is going to do it. But let me tell you, I’m hearing significant concerns from many sectors in the Virginia economy, agriculture, hospitality, health care, construction, that massive deportation rates would be an absolute gut punch to the Virginia and American economy. And if you add to that the Trump threat of massive tariffs, I think you’re- you’re going to see a lot of pain for consumers and a lot of pain for employers if they carry through on mass deportation. Now look, you’ve got a president who says a lot of things and then chooses not to do them, so I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

KAINE: But I would say that the economy of Virginia and the economy of this country is going to suffer through deporta- mass deportations and tariffs, if they go forward with what the President has said he will do.

BRENNAN: Well the Biden administration prioritizes criminals in their roundups and deportations. The Trump administration says they’re also going to target criminals. Do you think this is going to look different?

KAINE: Well, it’s- I do think the Biden administration prioritizes criminals who are a public safety risk, who threat- pose a threat of violence. The Trump administration could go much broader than that. You know, looking at folks- I mean, for example, there’s a bill that’s pending in the Senate right now that would deport people on the basis of an arrest even if they’ve not been convicted of anything. A shop like- lifting arrest, even if they’ve not been convicted of anything. A fundamental aspect of our society is that an arrest doesn’t mean anything unless there’s a conviction, because people get arrested all the time for things that they didn’t do. So if the Trump administration says, look, an arrest leads to deportation even without a conviction, yep, it’s going to look completely different, completely different than what the policy has been during the Biden administration.

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