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Trump Stresses Enforcement in Immigration Speech

We didn’t discuss payment of the wall.

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Ann Coulter, a conservative activist who had fretted that Trump might be softening, tweeted: “I hear Churchill had a nice turn of phrase, but Trump’s immigration speech is the most magnificent speech ever given”.

The actual speech was fascinating because Trump and his speechwriter did an wonderful job of creating the appearance of absolutely no “softening” of his plans, but while actually taking out a critical piece of his prior equation.

“Anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are moved out of our country”, Trump said, “and back to the country from which they came”. “They will have one route and one route only – to return home and apply for re-entry like everybody else under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined above”. He also criticized Trump for giving a more moderate immigration message to the Mexican leader, before delivering a fiery speech hours later to an American audience.

That omission didn’t bother Dan Stein, who leads the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that pushes for stricter immigration policies.

On Wednesday, Trump doubled down on his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the US with an angry speech that seemed designed at times to shake off rumors he’d even considered softening his approach.

The Republican presidential nominee is the first major party candidate in modern memory to propose limiting legal immigration. “It is deeply unpopular with voters, and profoundly un-American”.

Trump said any illegal immigrant arrested “for any crime whatsoever” would be placed in removal proceedings.

Mr Pena Nieto did not demand that the US Republican presidential candidate apologise for calling Mexican migrants rapists and criminals. The bickering began even before he cleared Mexican airspace, as Pena Nieto, contradicting Trump, said he had told Trump at the beginning of the meeting that Mexico would not pay for a wall.

The aggressive tone during his speech in Phoenix marked a shift from the NY billionaire’s demeanour 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. He says his priority is to “protect Mexicans wherever they may be”.

Correct The Record, an organization supporting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the Nov.8 presidential election, slammed Trump.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said no bueno on Twitter.

[.] He again approvingly referenced President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s deportation program “Operation Wetback”, a cruel and deadly disaster from the 1950s, suggesting that Trump’s version of that program would be even tougher.

Cohost Mika Brzezinski also expressed dismay, scoffing at comparisons to other summits between well-known U.S. diplomats and foreign leaders and calling Wednesday’s meeting a “ridiculous session with the president of Mexico about a wall that’s never going to happen”. “One hundred percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for it”. He pronounced Pena Nieto “a friend”.

Trump was cheered in Arizona, but his appearance in Mexico sparked anger and protests.

After a year of lobbing insults at Mexico, the provocative billionaire candidate was making a surprise visit to the neighboring country in the heat of the U.S. presidential campaign, seeking to seize control of the narrative and portray himself as a capable statesman on the worldwide stage.

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Trump said there were countries that refuse to accept immigrants the country wishes to remove. In June, the Republican National Committee’s head of Hispanic media relations, Ruth Guerra, resigned after telling co-workers she was not comfortable in a job where she was tasked to help get Donald Trump elected. Remember, under a Trump administration, it’s called America first.

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump end their joint statement at Los Pinos the presidential official residence in Mexico City Wednesday Aug. 31 2016. Trump is calling his surprise visit to Mexic