Not only did Pena Nieto not demand that Donald Trump apologize for calling Mexican migrants rapists and criminals, but he stood silently by in their joint press conference while the Republican candidate repeated his promise to build a border wall between the countries.
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Trump aides said he would reaffirm his determination to build the border wall to curtail new illegal crossings and quickly deport illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States.
In the speech on Wednesday night (Thursday morning Singapore time) that sought to clarify his controversial immigration policy, Mr Trump said the U.S. has the right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that it thinks are the most likely to thrive and who love the country.
The Republican presidential candidate took a harsh line on immigration saying, “Our message to the world will be this: you can not obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country”.
“People will know that you can’t just smuggle in, hunker down and wait to be legalized”. “Those days are over”.
Building a massive wall along the United States border with Mexico and forcing the neighbouring country to pay for it has been a frequent promise during Trump’s divisive election campaign.
“Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation”, Trump said in a highly anticipated speech, which took place mere hours after his surprise meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in his first trip overseas as the GOP nominee.
“We did discus the wall”.
“Mexico will pay for the wall, believe me”, Trump said in Phoenix. “From there, the conversation addressed other subjects and developed in a respectful manner”.
In the same speech, Trump said there would be a “zero tolerance” policy toward illegal immigrants. “The humiliation was complete”, Televisa news anchor Carlos Loret de Mola tweeted, after lamenting that Trump would dare to reiterate his intention to build a wall “in our face and home”.
Since shaking up his campaign team earlier this month, Trump has tried to stay on message, delivering prepared remarks via TelePrompTer that included lines created to appeal to African Americans and Latinos-two voting blocs where polls show he lags far behind Clinton.
“Tonight confirmed what we knew all along – there is no “softening”, Correct The Record spokeswoman Elizabeth Shappell said.
Trump’s quick acceptance of an invitation sent last Friday took Mexico’s government by surprise, and his visit to Mexico City came just hours ahead of a keynote speech on immigration as he sought to close the gap on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
However, he may have put himself at risk of limiting his ability to broaden his base of support to include more Hispanic-Americans and more moderate Republican voters who do not think it is possible or practical to crack down on all illegal immigrants.
“We did discuss the wall”.
The Republican nominee paid an unexpected visit to the country he has vilified for causing illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the United States. “That is what it means to have a country”.
Trump said removing people who overstay visas will be “a top priority”, and proposed “extreme vetting” to exclude potential terrorists.
Trump’s hard-line rhetoric on immigration, backed by an “America First” foreign policy, has defined his outsider presidential bid.
Some Mexican officials also privately expressed reservations about the meeting with one former diplomat saying Pena Nieto had done Trump’s campaign a favor.
Amid an outcry that he had invited such an unpopular figure to Mexico, Mr Peña Nieto said some of Mr Trump’s policies posed grave threats to his country.
– Peña Nieto called Trump’s rhetoric “strident” in an interview with Mexican paper Excelsior and said: “That’s how Mussolini got in”. Pena Nieto, at the time, said nothing about the wall.
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She also has multiple paths to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, while Trump’s roadmap is far narrower.
