Donald Trump has “pretty much decided” how he would tackle immigration reform as president despite his recent ambiguity on the issue, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Monday.
The Republican presidential nominee has vacillated on his immigration policy over the last two weeks, and refused to clearly say whether he still intends to deport all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally or give them some way to stay in the country. Trump plans to clarify his positions during a speech on Wednesday in Arizona.
“It will be pretty much the same thing as he always said,” Giuliani told Fox News. “First of all, he is going to increase significantly the number of Border Patrol. Increase the number of immigration agents, for a specific purpose. Stop them at the border and arrest the people that are here illegally.
“Since there are 11 million, 12 million, 13 million, 14 million, 15 million, we don’t know, I don’t know how many illegals are here, he’s going to start in the right way. He’s going to go after the most dangerous criminals first, then the less dangerous criminals second. And by the time we get there, then we’ll see what our population is of non-criminal illegal immigrants.”
Despite saying Trump’s immigration proposals are “pretty much decided,” Giuliani conceded that he remains unaware of where the candidate stands on a path to legal status for non-criminal illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said.
“What we can expect is the clear things, for sure,” the top Trump ally quickly added. “He’s going to build a wall. It’s going to be a technological as well as a physical wall, and with technology that can detect people five, six miles away …
“A wall not unlike the wall that was built in Israel, which Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu himself has told me was the most effective thing in securing their border that they’ve done in about 10 years,” he added.
