El presidente: Could Trump become America’s first Hispanic president?

Call the suggestion laughable if you must, but if Trump presides over the legalization of the so-called “Dreamers,” he may have more of a claim on the title than any president since at least Ronald Reagan — and more of a claim on such an honorific than Bill Clinton does for being called the first black president.

President George W. Bush spoke fluent Spanish, sought a deal to legalize illegal immigrants, and clearly had a heart for the Latino community. President Barack Obama won the presidency in part thanks to his overwhelming Hispanic support, appointed the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, and provided temporary protection to many illegal immigrants through executive actions.

Trump, conversely, got elected suggesting illegal immigrants were mainly drug traffickers or rapists. In an unquestionably racist comment, he declared that a judge presiding over a court case he was involved in was unfit for the job because he was of Mexican heritage and therefore couldn’t be impartial in a matter involving him. If elected, Trump pledged to create a deportation force to remove each and every illegal immigrant residing in the United States.

So it’s fair to observe that, on the face of his campaign, it wasn’t immediately obvious that Trump would do more for illegal immigrants than any of his presidential predecessors. And yet, if Trump is able to push Congress to provide a permanent path to legalization for the so-called “Dreamers,” he will have achieved more of what the activist Hispanic American community has been demanding than any of them.

It seems Trump is interested in doing so, which shouldn’t come as too big a surprise for people who have been paying attention to the Manhattan branding mogul. Though he campaigned as an immigration hawk, it wasn’t too long ago he claimed Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election because he was too harsh on illegal immigration. Trump may have campaigned like an immigration hardliner to win the small percentage of GOP voters who are absolutist on that issue, but it was never clear that he himself was ever actually a zealot.

Just more than a week after Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions enthusiastically announced the end of Obama’s executive action protecting the Dreamers earlier this month, Trump took to Twitter to suggest he wanted Congress to act to provide some form of legalization for them, not see the them deported.

The tweet came a day after he had dinner with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer where Trump reportedly came to some sort of agreement, if not a precise deal, to legalize the Dreamers. From reports, Trump appears to have agreed to sign a legalization bill that doesn’t even include funding for his coveted border wall, much less the RAISE Act.

We’ll see what happens. Breitbart and Ann Coulter virtually lit themselves on fire in response to the Trump tweet and purported deal. In the face of such opposition from a small but disproportionally vocal part of his base, perhaps Trump will backtrack. Perhaps Congress, like previous Congresses, will fail to get a bill to the president’s desk. But it seems that Trump is willing to sign a bill that would provide some type of legalization to the Dreamers, if not citizenship, and Congress just might give him the opportunity to do so.

You might say that, like most Americans, Hispanic Americans care more about jobs and the economy than illegal immigration. Polls show that’s true, but the activist Hispanic American community has placed legalization of illegal immigrants at the top of their agenda. They hoped Bush would push a legalization bill through. They expected Obama would. In the end, it may be Trump who achieves it – at least for the Dreamers, and very possibly for most of the other illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

It’s absurd to call anyone who isn’t actually Hispanic the first Hispanic president. But if Clinton can be called the first black president for no compelling reason, and if Trump signs a bill legalizing the Dreamers, he would be just as deserving of such a title.

Perhaps, if the time comes, we can settle on applauding him for doing the right thing.

Jamie Weinstein (@Jamie_Weinstein) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He hosts The Jamie Weinstein Show podcast and is founding partner at JMW Strategies.

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