U.S. immigration officials apprehend an undocumented immigrant. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the U.S., leaving about 160,000 South Koreans in the country illegally at increased risk of being deported. / Korea Times file



By Park Si-soo



About 160,000 South Koreans who are in the United States illegally face a growing risk of deportation, with President-elect Donald Trump vowing to implement his campaign pledge to crack down on undocumented immigrants.

The crackdown is likely to focus on illegal immigrants from Mexico, those with criminal records, gang members and drug dealers. But the scope could widen, given that he has constantly blamed illegal migrants for reduced job opportunities for U.S. citizens.

Including 160,000 from South Korea, up to 11 million illegal immigrants are in the U.S., news reports say. Of them, Trump said around 3 million illegal immigrants with criminal records, gang members and drug dealers will become the No.1 target of deportation.



"What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers," trump told CBS' 60 Minutes. "We have a lot of these people -- probably two million, it could be even three million -- we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate them. They are here illegally."



Trump reaffirmed his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border.



"After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we're going to make a determination on the people that you're talking about who are terrific people, they're terrific people, but we are going to make a determination on that," he said.

Early this month, the Pew Research Center estimated that 160,000 Koreans were in the U.S illegally.

The center said the number of illegal Korean immigrants in the U.S. had risen steadily since 1990 to a peak of about 200,000 in 2010 before declining moderately to 190,000 in 2011 and 180,000 in 2012.