"When dealing with people, we have to be very firm. We have to be very, very strong when people come in illegally," Trump said during a phone interview on "Fox and Friends."

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"We have a lot of people that want to come in through the legal process," Trump continued. "We're working with a lot of people in the Hispanic community to try and come up with an answer."

"So you're not flip-flopping?" Trump was asked.

"No, I'm not flip-flopping," he responded.

"We want to come up with a really fair but firm answer. It has to be very firm," he said. "But we want to come up with something fair."

Trump's new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, on Sunday declined to say whether the GOP nominee still backs a deportation force to remove the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

"What he supports is to make sure that we enforce the law, that we are respectful of those Americans who are looking for well-paying jobs, and that we are fair and humane for those who live among us in this country," Conway said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Trump disputed a BuzzFeed report over the weekend that said he expressed openness to legalization for those in the country illegally when addressing his newly announced Hispanic advisory council during a meeting at Trump Tower.