Trump delivered the hardline speech on immigration soon after he met the Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto.
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Left unanswered by Trump: What would happen to those who have not committed crimes beyond their immigration offenses? He reportedly told his supporters in Phoenix that he had “met with numerous great parents who lost their children to sanctuary cities and open borders”. “There will be no amnesty”.
“People will know that you can’t just smuggle in, hunker down and wait to be legalized – it’s not going to work that way”.
His tense worldwide trip on Wednesday saw Trump navigating a political tightrope just 69 days before the United States election.
Trump’s speech before a raucous crowd of supporters in a border state, Arizona, came after weeks of hints from the candidate and top advisers he was reconsidering some of the fundamental tenants of his immigration policy after months of railing against it in the Republican primary.
The Republican candidate first made his accusations that Mexico is sending criminals and rapists across the border and pledged to build a wall that Mexico would pay for when he launched his presidential bid in June previous year.
Televisa news presenter Carlos Loret de Mola marvelled that Mr Trump would dare go to Mexico and reiterate his intention to build the wall.
In a lengthy and fiery address on immigration in Phoenix, the Republican nominee said in no uncertain terms that Mexico would indeed pay for his border wall. It was surreal because Mr. Trump has spent his entire campaign painting Mexico as a nation of rapists, drug smugglers and trade hustlers who would have to pay for the 2,000-mile border wall that Mr. Trump was going to build.
Late Wednesday night, he reportedly said that some of Trump’s policies pose a grave threat to Mexico.
Pena Nieto has publicly voiced skepticism about Trump. U.S. – Mexico wall: costly So after his first foreign visit as leader of the GOP, Trump is at an impasse with the leader he visited.
“I just landed, having returned from a very important and special meeting with the president of Mexico, a man I like and respect very much and a man who truly loves his country, Mexico, by the way, just like I am a man who loves my country, the United States”, Trump said. He promised to create a “deportation task force” within ICE, but said the force would focus on undocumented immigrants who are criminals. Pena Nieto remained silent on the issue at the event, but said later on Twitter he did raise the issue. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in an interview that the inclusion of a deportation force in Trump’s policy was “TBD”.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, said on Wednesday that Trump could not paper over his previous harsh language against Mexico, which helped him defeat 16 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.
Correct The Record, an organisation supporting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the Nov.8 presidential election, slammed Trump.
The aggressive tone during his speech in Phoenix marked a shift from the NY billionaire’s demeanor earlier in the day, when a much more measured Trump described Mexicans as “amazing people” as he appeared alongside Pena Nieto in Mexico’s capital city.
The tycoon also proposed an “extreme” vetting process for countries including Syria and Libya. Of Pena Nieto, Hope said “in the end, he gave Trump an opportunity to show off, while getting nothing in return”.
“Mexican people felt hurt by the comments made”, he said alongside Trump.
Javier Urbano Reyes, a professor in the department of International Studies at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City, said he thought Trump gained a little with the meeting but Mexico’s president lost a lot.
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“It certainly takes more than trying to make up for more than a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again”, she told a convention of the American Legion military veterans’ group in Cincinnati.
