Donald Trump returned to form in Phoenix Wednesday night with a nativist immigration plan definitively ruling out legal status for undocumented immigrants, as well as proposing to build a wall on the southern border of the U.S. and forcing Mexico to cover the cost.
Advertisement
Among his proposals were building a border wall, a new deportation task force, and a requirement that undocumented immigrants leave the country to apply for legal status.
“At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall”, CNN cites Peña Nieto’s tweet.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he will order the immediate detention of all known immigrants in the USA illegally who have been arrested for crimes.
Trump went on to outline other areas of his immigration plan suggesting he would create a “deportation task force” that would be “focused on identifying and quickly removing the most risky criminal illegal aliens in America”.
Mr Trump also proposed “ideological certification” of immigrants to the USA “to make sure that those we are admitting to our country share our values and love our people”.
Building a massive wall along the USA border with Mexico and forcing the neighbouring country to pay for it has been a frequent promise during Trump’s divisive election campaign.
“A more prosperous Mexico means fewer illegal border crossings, and a better market for products made in the United States”, Trump said.
How darkly ironic that this virulent anti-immigrant sentiment comes from a man who has been accused of using illegal workers on his hotels and properties, whose modeling agency allegedly flouted immigration law, who prefers to hire cheaper foreign labor over Americans at his Florida resort, and whose wife has her own immigration controversy.
Trump also promised to “immediately terminate” President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration, including a 2012 program that now shields some 750,000 young people from deportation.
“100 per cent”, he said. A Buzzfeed report even suggested Trump was “open” to a plan that would provide pathways to naturalization for some illegal US residents – which would have represented a seismic policy shift for the billionaire.
Even as he beat a retreat from his earlier pledge to deport all illegal immigrants from the country, Trump’s aggressive tone in Phoenix marked a shift from earlier in the day.
And the wall? “They don’t know it yet, but they’re going pay for the wall”, he said.
Who will finance the wall between Mexico and the US?
He says that Clinton talks about the families that would be separated if people in the country illegally were deported, but she doesn’t talk about families impacted negatively by illegal immigration. Trump said he would tell the Department of State, Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice to begin a comprehensive review of cases to develop a list of countries from which immigration will be suspended without what he calls “extreme vetting”.
The potential visit follows months of warring words between Trump and Mexico’s leaders, including when Peña Nieto compared Trump to brutal dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
“We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration”, Trump declared to a rowdy crowd in Phoenix. This brief flirtation with moderation led many to speculate that Trump was courting Hispanic voters – a theory that was buoyed by the candidate’s last-minute meeting with the Mexican president Wednesday. He also said that he would reform legal immigration with an eye towards making it work for American citizens over those hoping to come here.
Advertisement
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
