As Donald Trump delivered his noteworthy immigration speech in Arizona on Wednesday, it became increasingly clear that the success or otherwise of his signature campaign issue rests on his ability to apply a central tenet of his book “The Art of the Deal”: Maximize your options.
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In 2006, while a US senator from New York, Clinton voted in favor of the Secure Fence Act, which proposed building 700 miles of barricades at various locations on the southern border.
“What is a fact is that in the face of candidate Trump’s postures and positions, which clearly represent a threat to the future of Mexico, it was necessary to talk”, Pena Nieto said.
She also supports Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which provides legal status to children who arrive in the country illegally, as well as Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, which would allow immigrant parents of children born in the U.S.to receive a work permit and avoid deportation. So what are voters left with, besides a bad case of vertigo? “What Trump has done is essentially create a crisis and exacerbate the level of anger, frustration and apprehension among many Americans”. “The substance of [Peña Nieto’s] entire message should have been that the wall and the deportations and revisiting NAFTA are all unacceptable positions to Mexico, and all would constitute serious threats to the USA relationship with Mexico”.
Those speaking out against Trump also included Jacob Monty, a Houston-based attorney and member of the candidate’s National Hispanic Advisory Council.
At a campaign rally on Thursday in Wilmington, Ohio, Trump said his immigration plan would treat everyone with “dignity, respect and compassion” but prioritize compassion for American citizens and include some kind of ideological screening.
Trump’s campaign, however, insisted the billionaire businessman had never wavered. Trump was accompanied by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, arguably the most anti-immigrant politician since Sen.
Doris Meissner, the former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said that Trump’s proposal to limit immigration is in line with a theory that after bursts of immigration the country should limit migration.
Conservatives have tried to argue for years that they are not anti-immigrant, just anti-illegal immigration. And most, I believe, are honest.
Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a immigration reform organization, said that Trump’s speech puts him far to the right even of the Republican Party.
It’s also a stark contrast with Democrat Hillary Clinton, who wants to expand President Barack Obama’s order deferring deportation for many in the country illegally, and supports measures that would expand legal immigration.
Some of his proposals, like changing the immigration system to focus more on high-skilled laborers, are similar to ideas in a 2013 immigration bill that stalled in Congress because it would let numerous 11 millions people in the country illegally remain here.
Trump also said he will “select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in US society”.
It’s easy to forget that anti-immigrant fervor isn’t new.
Warning that the country “is a mess”, Trump told boisterous supporters in Phoenix on Wednesday that he would deport millions of “criminal aliens” and cut funding to cities that protect them such as Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco.
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As the Rolling Stones once sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need”.
