Donald Trump's running mate Mike Pence insisted Wednesday that the GOP nominee "hasn't wavered for a minute" on his immigration policy, but he did not answer definitively CBS News' Norah O'Donnell's repeated questions about whether Trump's plans will involve mass deportation of the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
"What you'll hear tonight is Donald Trump will reinforce a commitment to strong borders, to building a wall, to internal enforcement, ending sanctuary cities," the Indiana governor told O'Donnell, on the "CBS This Morning" program.
"To make it clear to your question, there will be no path to legalization, no path to citizenship," he told O'Donnell. "People will need to leave the country to be able to obtain legal status or obtain citizenship and that is going to be very consistent with what he said throughout the course of this campaign."
Trump's speech, to be delivered in Phoenix Wednesday night after Trump meets with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto earlier in the day, will draw a "dramatic" contrast with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's plans, said Pence, as she advocates amnesty.
O'Donnell, though, insisted that Pence did not answer her question about deportations.
"I think what people will hear tonight is really the details of a plan and an objective that Donald Trump has been laying out since he put the issue of illegal immigration at the very center of the national debate, now more than a year ago in the Republican primary," said Pence.
Trump was criticized after a town hall meeting with Fox News' Sean Hannity, after he said his administration could work with undocumented immigrants who are otherwise not breaking other laws while living in the country.
And when O'Donnell said she was "still confused" about the fate of the nation's undocumented immigrants, Pence replied that Trump Wednesday night will repeat "a very clear articulation of the very same principles he articulated in the course of the primary campaigns, that he is going to end the flood of illegal immigration."
"Do you know the answer, governor?" she replied. "Have you seen the speech?"
"I know people are anxious to know what is in it, but tune in tonight, it's going to be a very important address and the American people, as they are used to from Donald Trump, are going to hear someone who speaks very plainly, very forthrightly and in the context of that speech. Donald Trump is going to lay out the impact that illegal immigration has had on this country," said Pence.
Trump will also outline "the impact that it's had on costing jobs for American citizens and people who are here illegal, the cause of suppressing wage the last 10 and 15 years," said Pence. "Frankly, the fact that illegal immigration has cost lives in this country will be high relief again tonight."
Pence, also appearing on CNN's "New Day," told the program that the meeting with Mexico's president is will be a "beginning" of a "conversation" with the two countries.
"Negotiations will follow this," Pence told the program, "but it all precedes out of a relationship. To know Donald Trump is to know not your standard-issue politician, but really a business leader that knows, you've first got to sit down with people.
"You got to look them in the eye, you've got to tell them where you stand. They can express their positions. That's where real negotiations can begin."
Meanwhile, Pence told O'Donnell that he's "so proud" of Trump's decision to meet with the Mexican president.
"I think the American people are seeing today the kind of decisive leader that he will be as president," said Pence. "He gets an invitation late last week to meet with our neighbor to the south and even in the midst of a day when he is in Washington state, big speech last night, important, if not historic speech tonight on illegal immigration."
Meanwhile, Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus has talked about the importance of reaching out to minority voters in the wake of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's loss to President Barack Obama, but Pence said he agrees that Trump was "right more than a year ago to put the issue of illegal immigration back at the center of the national debate.
"The American people are very troubled by it," said Pence. "They know this lackluster economy, the slowest economy recovery since the Great Depression that a flood of illegal immigration has cost jobs for American citizens, including Latinos and Hispanics here in this country."
Illegal immigration has also brought violence to America's streets, said Pence, and Trump has made it clear that "when we take office after January 20, there will be a focus on removing from this country people who have engaged beyond their status as illegal immigrants."