Trump faced anger, confusion and disgust from across the political spectrum Yesterday after indicating that he was open to letting some unauthorized immigrants remain in the country legally provided that they paid “back taxes”.
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Trump also called for an end to “sanctuary cities”, or municipalities that have placed restrictions on local law enforcement contacting the federal government to begin deportation proceedings when an undocumented person is identified or arrested.
“He’s saying, let’s fix this problem, let’s fix it and then we’ll wrestle with the people who have been here a long time”, the Trump supporter said Thursday during an interview on Fox News. “Poor Ann, oh my God, she has this book ‘In Trump We Trust, ‘ and in it she says, ‘The only thing, the only thing that could cause Donald Trump any trouble whatsoever is if he flip-flops on abortion or immigration and goes amnesty, ‘ and it looks like he’s getting close to it”.
“So you have somebody who’s been in the country for 20 years, has done a great job, and everything else”, Trump said.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton seems content to leave Trump with a hard core of very conservative and angry voters-which amounts to about 40 percent or less of the electorate, according to pollsters of both major parties.
Wednesday night, a Trump campaign source confirmed the real estate mogul will outline his immigration policies in a speech next Wednesday in Phoenix. He rejected the argument that only immigrants who’ve committed crimes should be deported, because as he argued, anyone in the country illegally is by definition a criminal.
But that’s not the main reason why Trump is softening his immigration rhetoric – because he surely knows that he has near zero chance of significantly raising his support among Hispanics.
Trump’s team is struggling to maintain that he hasn’t actually changed his position: spokesperson Katrina Pierson told CNN, “He hasn’t changed his position”.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, a staunch proponent of strict immigration laws, spoke to Yahoo News Guest Anchor Stephanie Sy about Donald Trump’s position on immigration, which has come into question in recent days.
“Trump didn’t need to “soften” his immigration position – he needed to define a coherent one and stick with it”, wrote Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. All of us have things that we carry along with us, but I do think that it cheapens the use of the word. He once called for a deportation force, calling candidates such as Jeb Bush, who advocated for a path to legal status, “weak” on immigration.
Trump said earlier this year that his support was so strong, he could go out on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and he wouldn’t lose his base. I support you because I’m Latina.
Besides, some insist that legal immigration leads to more illegal immigration because people from other countries will try to join family members in the United States, even if they must do so illegally. On the other hand, he asked the audience “If you have someone who’s terrific, who’s been here a long time, a long court proceeding, a long everything in other words, to get ’em out, can we go through a process or do you think they have to get out?”
Trump is also making a new pitch to black voters. Come to think about it, isn’t that precisely why Trump hammered Senator Marco Rubio so successfully early in the nomination season? And if you are only now recognizing deporting 11 million people en masse is heartless you are dumber than dirt.
Asked about his changing statements, the Republican presidential nominee said some view his position as a “hardening”.
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“She is a bigot”, he said. “We are going to come out with a decision very soon”.
