During the Republican presidential primary, an animating policy of Trump’s campaign was his hardline stance on immigration.
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“There could certainly can be a softening because we’re not looking to hurt people”, Trump answered.
He said of his Democratic opponent, “Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future”. But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and they’ve said, ‘Mr.
Instead, Trump must explain to his most ardent followers why he no longer believes what he once adamantly said he did. “We’re going to have all the laws obeyed”. “There are some things where you sort of feel bad, this one, we have these killers in this country. Now, we can be more aggressive on that but we want to follow the laws”, he told Hannity. Ready? Number one, we’ll say throw them out, number two we say work with them. Taking Trump’s words last night at face value, though, there is no difference between the “pay back taxes … work with them” position and the Gang of Eight bill, except for the fact that Rubio tried working with Chuck Schumer to pass exactly that policy.
“So you have somebody who’s been in the country for 20 years, has done a great job, and everything else”, Trump said.
No one can change his hateful rhetoric or risky policies to send a deportation force into American communities, rescind DACA and DAPA, end birthright citizenship, and even ban remittances to families in Mexico in order to help build his giant wall.
On these and other questions, Trump’s supporters are far from the mainstream on immigration – some 67% overall say illegals are no more likely than citizens to commit serious crimes, and 76% say they’re just as hardworking as US citizens.
The Republican presidential nominee remained non-committal on deportation of all the 11 illegal immigrants even those who have not committed any crime.
The changed position that Mr Trump seems to be moving to is similar to the policies proposed by his one-time rivals, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and United States senator Marco Rubio, whom he chided in the Republican primary for being “soft” on immigration.
His latest comments at the “Hannity” town hall come as he may be moving away from one of his signature proposals during the Republican primary. A Pew Research Poll released Thursday suggests Trump may have a tough time with his base on the immigration issue.
The property developer had previously planned to set up a “deportation force” that would round up the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, including thousands of Irish.
On Wednesday, Trump told Hannity there would be “no citizenship” for those illegal immigrants.
“There’s no path to legalization unless they leave the country”, Trump told Cooper after an event in Manchester, New Hampshire.
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If Trump does abandon plans for massive deportation, he’s still staked out a radical approach to immigration-including his dubious proposal to build a giant wall along the Mexican border and his insistence, despite all evidence, that Mexico will pay for it.
