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Mexicans are disappointed in Trump’s visit, but not with Trump

“There’s a very simple way for Mexico to pay for the wall”, said Mr Navarro, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of California (Irvine).

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Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Thursday that Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump’s proposals represent a “threat” to his country, a day after the two men met in the Mexican capital.

Left unanswered by Trump: What would happen to those who have not committed crimes beyond their immigration offenses?

But there wasn’t much new in the Wednesday evening speech that Trump’s campaign staff had billed as his major immigration moment.

But there was no direct mention of a core promise of his primary campaign – to create a “deportation force” that would remove all of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

As recently as Monday, he said, the GOP presidential nominee had signaled on a conference call with faith leaders that they could expect to see a gentler, more compassionate Trump in the speech. Not any more. Remember, under a Trump administration, it’s called America first.

Critics, meanwhile, said Trump’s glossing over the fate of people who are peacefully living in the US without permission doesn’t make up for his overall approach.

“It is still the most extreme position of any modern presidential candidate”, said Frank Sharry, a leading immigration advocate.

Immigration experts on Thursday said Trump exaggerated and distorted figures on both crime and illegal immigration.

Trump’s trip to Mexico is widely being described with words like “subdued.”

WATCH VIDEO:Local residents react to Trump, Mexican president meetingTrump struck two very different tones Wednesday, first in Mexico and then Arizona.

“TV footage showing him standing right next to Pena Nieto, a real head of state automatically makes Trump look ‘presidential.’ This is a big deal for a man now ridiculed by his USA political opponents as a buffoon”, Schirach suggested.

Loosely translated, Nieto’s tweet reads, “At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump I made it clear Mexico would not pay for the wall”. “Well, we know who Trump is”, Clinton told supporters at a recent rally in Reno, Nevada. And from Arizona and Florida on Tuesday came new signs that Trump’s rebellion has fizzled.

Yet, standing on American soil, he addressed directly a question he sidestepped when asked in Mexico. “And Mexico will pay for the wall – 100 percent. One-hundred percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall”. There was intrigue about what exactly was said in his closed-door meeting with the Mexican president.

President Pena Nieto is adamant that Mexico won’t.

Donald Trump’s back-to-back immigration-focused events in Mexico and Arizona were an astounding display of political whiplash. The candidate is deeply unpopular in Mexico due in large part to his deriding the country as a source of rapists and criminals as he kicked off his campaign. “We set up the borders, we control immigration, you levy a charge to come into the country”.

A Washington Post poll released last month showed only 18 per cent of Latino voters saw Trump favourably, compared with 55 per cent who said they saw Hillary Clinton favourably.

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In his speech on immigration late Wednesday, Trump capped a list of steps to combat illegal immigration, with a final pledge to completely revamp the country’s legal immigration system in order to lessen the number of people allowed into the United States.

Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shake hands after a joint statement at Los Pinos the presidential official residence in Mexico City Wednesday Aug. 31 2016. Trump is call