Donald Trump hopes to put questions about his immigration policy to rest in a major speech on Wednesday, after spending the past week dancing around the signature issue of his presidential campaign.
The Republican presidential nominee spent 14 months chastising prominent GOP lawmakers and Hillary Clinton for supporting lenient immigration laws and backing measures that ensure “illegal immigrants are taken better care of than our veterans.” Trump so often spoke of developing a Southern border wall that it evolved into a favorite chant at his campaign rallies, and when he released his first television ad of the general election earlier this month, the message was clear: Clinton’s immigration policy is “more of the same, but worse.”
Until recently, a time capsule of Trump’s comments on immigration would have shown a candidate whose goal would be deporting every last immigrant living in the U.S. illegally, without exception. So when the billionaire suddenly told Hispanic leaders in a meeting on Aug. 20 that he was open to taking a more humane approach to immigration reform, Americans’ jaws dropped.
Nothing Trump nor his campaign has said since he first hinted at softening his approach has helped to clarify whether he intends to modify his policies on immigration or simply soften his tone.
For instance, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last Wednesday that “everybody agrees we get the bad [illegal immigrants] out, but when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject … and they’ve said, ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump …,’ it’s a very, very hard thing.”
What Trump told Hannity was a far cry from his promise last November to develop a “deportation force” tasked with sending all 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. back to their home countries. And it hardly went unnoticed by conservatives who initially took a chance on his campaign because they were attracted to his tough talk on immigration.
“Well, if it’s ‘hard,’ then nevermind,” Ann Coulter tweeted sarcastically in reaction to the candidate’s remark. The conservative author coincidentally released her new book, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!, the same week Trump first hinted at a shift on immigration.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the anti-amnesty Center for Immigration Studies, told the Wall Street Journal that “whatever remaining chance [Trump] had to win the White House” disappeared with his recent comments on immigration. A former campaign aide to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Trump belonged in the “Gang of 9,” mocking him for sounding like the eight senators who endorsed a 13-year path to citizenship in their controversial immigration bill in 2013.
Wednesday’s speech in Arizona, which could become a toss-up after voting Republican in the last four presidential elections, will play a pivotal role in determining whether Trump is “softening” or “hardening” his positions on immigration in the final 70 days before Election Day.
“I’m looking for reaffirmation of several things he’s said over the past year, No. 1 being that the American public is the primary stakeholder in immigration policy,” said Ira Mehlman of the anti-amnesty Federation for American Immigration Reform.
“The inference of everything that Trump has been saying is that the American public is the primary stakeholder, not the people who break our laws or the businesses that want to hire cheap labor,” he noted, adding that the GOP presidential hopeful should also confirm “that he has not changed his position on amnesty.”
Mehlman argued allowing immigrants to remain in the country as long as they pay back taxes would constitute amnesty. He urged Trump, who floated such a proposal during his interview with Hannity, to clarify whether he would stand for that.
“If that’s his position, then that is amnesty,” Mehlman declared. “If you want to reduce membership in American society to paying taxes, that’s a very low bar.”
If Trump’s goal is to prove he still opposes amnesty and is capable of securing the border, Mehlman suggested he share details on how he plans to rationally enforce immigration laws and systematically eliminate existing incentives for prospective immigrants to come to the U.S. illegally.
Those close to Trump have said the specifics he intends to provide on Wednesday should prevent his detractors and the media from raising further questions about his immigration platform.
“His real goal is to straighten out the press, because the press has been interpreting his immigration policy, which is fairly clear, in many different ways,” Carl Paladino, the director of Trump’s New York campaign operation, told The Hill. “What [Trump] wants to do is clean it up and make sure he has crossed his t’s and dotted his i’s so he’s not taken out of context or his words are misused.”
“You’re going to hear more detail in next two weeks that lays out all the policies,” Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, told CNN’s Jake Tapper over the weekend.
But even on Sunday, four days before Trump’s immigration speech which his advisers had presumably begun working with him on, the billionaire’s campaign manager couldn’t say whether he believes illegal immigrants should be forced to leave the U.S. before they are eligible to become citizens.
“That’s really the question here,” Kellyanne Conway told CBS News.
