A member of Donald Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council immediately resigned from his post after hearing the Republican presidential nominee double down on his immigration policies in a speech Wednesday night.
“I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump when I believed he was going to address the immigration problem realistically and compassionately,” Jacob Monty, a Houston-based attorney who held a fundraiser for Trump as recently as mid-June, told Politico.
Monty was one of several Hispanic business leaders who met with Trump at his Manhattan skyscraper last month to discuss the candidate’s policies on immigration.
“When we met, he was going to approach this issue with a realistic plan, a compassionate plan, with a plan that was not disruptive to the immigrants that were here that were not lawbreakers,” Monty recalled.
“What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate. He didn’t deliver any of that,” he later said.
Following his meeting with the president of Mexico on Wednesday afternoon, Trump vowed during a speech in Arizona to develop a special “deportation task force” to remove millions of criminal illegal immigrants and reaffirmed his opposition to a pathway to citizenship or legal status for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
“You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the U.S. by illegally entering our country,” he said.
“I can tell you there’s a real possibility we will withdraw support from Donald Trump because of that disappointing speech,” Alfonso Aguilar, another Hispanic Trump surrogate, told Politico. “Did you hear anything in that speech that was compassionate and humane? No.”
Nevertheless, Trump’s campaign billed his speech as “nothing short of presidential” in a statement released by Georgia Sen. David Perdue late Wednesday evening.
“The plan he unveiled tonight is consistent with his efforts to restore law and order to our country,” Perdue said. “Mr. Trump has been clear since day one that he will make America safe again by first securing our borders and enforcing current immigration laws.”
