Story highlights Trump has used a series of executive orders to chip away at the barriers to deportations

Trump is not using the military to deport undocumented immigrants

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump, meeting with business leaders at the White House on Thursday, described his administration's moves to deport undocumented immigrants as a "military operation," a label that runs counter to what his administration has previously said.

Trump has used a series of executive orders to chip away at the barriers to deportations and hire new law enforcement officials to spearhead the effort, using the Department of Homeland Security to live up to the President's tough talk on undocumented immigration during the 2016 campaign.

"We're getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobody's ever seen before," Trump said Thursday. "And they're the bad ones. And it's a military operation."

He added: "You see what's happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, we're getting gang members out. We're getting drug lords out."

A White House spokesperson said Trump did not misspeak by calling deportations a 'military operation,' but clarified the President meant "military" as an "adjective."

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