The video shows Trump speaking in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday night, saying: “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation…”
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Asked after an event in Bayonne about Trump’s visit to Mexico, Menendez, D-NJ, accused the candidate of not being truthful about what was discussed between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
And Trump didn’t do himself any favors by giving the Arizona speech in a rally setting.
[Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Images] President Obama has been active in solving illegal immigration issues.
So focused, in fact, that he wants to spend billions of dollars (Trump claims 12 billion, the Post estimated 25 billion) to build a wall between the USA and Mexico, yet continues to state that his plans are to deport a wider range of nationalities.
“In several years, when we have accomplished all of our enforcement and deportation goals and truly ended illegal immigration for good, including the construction of a great wall, then and only then will we be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those individuals who remain”, Trump said.
They are indeed tragic stories, but they are hardly representative. The population of criminals among illegal immigrants is lower than the percentage among native-born Americans, according to criminologists.
It is not just members of the Hispanic community who are turned off, it is also those who work closely with them. It would have provided funding for even more border guards than Trump proposes. Donald Trump plans to deport more categories of nationalities, he claims. Unsurprisingly, the speech won praise from white nationalists. “Mr. Trump is the right guy for the job”. He wants to deport 4 million US citizens, children of undocumented immigrants, by repealing birthright citizenship. He would round up at least 2 million people and deport them apparently without grasping the manpower, jail facilities and courtrooms such a dragnet and court proceedings would require.
And at the opening of the Mexican consulate in Milwaukee this week, rightly heralded by state and local leaders as an important strengthening of the ties between Mexico and Wisconsin, Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu noted that immigrants from Mexico are hard workers and valuable to Wisconsin. Between 2009 and 2014, there was a net loss of 140,000 people, as many Mexicans returned home to reunite with families.
“We will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall”, he said.
Trump reiterated his position on Muslim migrants, recast from a total ban to “extreme vetting”, that includes an ideological test meant to weed out those who do not share the country’s liberal values, including religious freedom, and women’s and gay rights. By ruling out amnesty for now, Trump emphatically gave the wrong answer – although one that makes sense if we take our immigration laws seriously.
But Trump’s vitriol and demonisation of undocumented immigrants forecloses any constructive dialogue on the issue.
In an opinion piece for El Pais, the Mexican-born director said that inviting the Republican presidential nominee, who visited the country on Wednesday, was “a betrayal”, reported Entertainment Weekly.
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Lauren Carasik is a clinical professor of law and the Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England University School of Law.
