NEW YORK – Donald Trump embraced new Cabinet officers Wednesday whose backgrounds suggest he’s primed to put tough actions behind his campaign rhetoric on immigration and the environment, even as he seemed to soften his yearlong stance on immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

It’s clearer by the day, underscored by Trump’s at-times contradictory words, that his actual policies as president won’t be settled until after he takes his seat in the Oval Office.

Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly has been selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate-change denier whose policies have helped fossil fuel companies, is to be announced as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Separately, Trump named the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, to head the Small Business Administration.

Trump’s long presidential campaign was in large part defined by searing rhetoric and his steadfast promises to build an impenetrable wall on the border with Mexico and crack down on immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But he struck a softer tone in an interview published Wednesday after he was named Time Magazine’s "Person of the Year."

"We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud," Trump said. "They got brought here at a very young age; they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen."

He offered no details about a policy that would make that clear.

During the campaign, Trump’s tough comments – including a vow to overturn President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration – have led to fears among immigrant advocates that he will end Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have gained work permits and temporary protection from deportation under the 2012 program, which aides to Trump have said would be revisited.

Others continue to press the immigrants’ case. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel presented Trump a letter Wednesday from 14 big city mayors urging him to keep the program intact.

"It’s no fault of their own their parents came here," Emmanuel told reporters in the lobby of Trump’s skyscraper. "They are something we should hold up and embrace."

Also Wednesday, Trump said he planned to name his secretary of state next week and insisted that former rival Mitt Romney still had a chance. Trump, who has met twice with the 2012 GOP nominee, denied he was stringing Romney along to make him pay for saying the former reality show star was unfit to be president.

"No, it’s not about revenge. It’s about what’s good for the country, and I’m able to put this stuff behind us – and I hit him very hard also," Trump said in a telephone interview on NBC.

Those close to the selection process have said that Trump has begun moving away from both Romney and another former front-runner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and former CIA Director David Petraeus had also been previously identified by transition aides as part of the final four though Trump has now expanded the pool.

The president-elect also announced his selection of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as the new U.S. ambassador to China.