One of those members, immigration attorney Jacob Monty, explained his reasoning on The Kelly File, saying it was a tough decision. He would create a “new special deportation” police force, triple the number of federal agents who enforce immigration laws, and sharply reduce all existing legal immigration levels.
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“There’s several of us who have gone out on a limb, if you will, to try to at least be at the table of reason with him, and that’s left us confused and disappointed”, said Tony Suarez, the executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.
“What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate”.
Trump’s speech was immediately derided as “hardline … inflammatory … nativism…. bombast” by Politico, which also printed a claim by an advisor to Hillary Clinton that the speech was Hitlerian. Trump excitedly asked The Washington Post on Thursday.
Trump scored points with his base, however.
Anti-immigration rhetoric has fueled the careers of many politicians there, including three who appeared onstage with Trump: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and Gov. Doug Ducey.
For weeks, Donald Trump flirted with a self-described “softening” of the hard-line immigration policies that propelled him to the Republican nomination, raising the hopes of party officials, some Hispanic leaders and skeptical voters unnerved by his presidential candidacy.
“He had been somewhat diplomatic and nuanced into the afternoon, and in the evening, he reverted to form”, Tony Garza, who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Mexico, said Thursday on MSNBC.
“Let’s get back to what makes America America: it attracts the poorest, the people who want to work the hardest, that want to work for their family”, said the restaurant association’s Patrick Tamm. He looked like somebody who was trying to solve the problem. “For him to turn and just disregard everything we talked about a week-and-a-half ago and just recite the talking points from FAIR and Numbers USA” – two organizations that favor restrictive immigration policies – “that was disappointing”.
Some members of a council Trump formed last month to advise him on Hispanic issues expressed reservations about or cut ties to the NY real estate developer’s candidacy after the Phoenix speech. “It does not serve you, the American people”, Trump said in Reno on August 31, while shifting the debate away from the establishment’s concern for migrants. “The “National Hispanic Advisory Council” seems to be simply for optics and I do not have the time or energy for a scam”.
Her campaign called Trump’s performance part of his “campaign of hate”. He rattled off recent surveys that he said show his support has inched up.
And Hillary Clinton is going to do nothing for the African-American worker, the Latino worker.
“It was a leadership mistake. It was a moral mistake”, Figueroa tweeted.
“We didn’t discuss that”, Mr. Trump replied.
“There will be no amnesty”, he declared Wednesday at a rally in Phoenix, adding that “no one will be immune or exempt from enforcement”. Don’t believe the media. “You know what I told him?”
“If he loses, there’ll be the soul-searching of what we could have done better”. He did not return calls for comment.
“Why did I meet with Donald Trump?”. Bush was not on the advisory council.
Instead, Trump said those in the country illegally would have to return to their country of origin before they would be eligible for legal status in the US, a plan similar to the self-deportation approach suggested by Republican Mitt Romney in his failed 2012 presidential bid.
Santa Ana’s Lupe Moreno, a longtime Republican activist, says her backing of Trump was buoyed by his immigration speech.
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“He’s a populist propaganda con artist”, Monty said.
