Trump set to lay out new plan on immigrants

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will make a major speech on illegal immigration Wednesday in Arizona, after a week of speculation that he may well be softening his hard-line promise to deport 11 million people living in the United States illegally.

The speech was initially set for last Thursday in Phoenix, but was pushed back as Trump and his team wrestled over the details of what he would propose. There has been debate within his campaign about immigrants who haven’t committed crimes beyond their immigration offenses.

The candidate’s shifting stance hasn’t made it easy for top supporters and advisers, from his running mate on down, to defend him or explain some campaign positions. Across the Sunday news shows, a parade of Trump stand-ins, led by vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, couldn’t say whether Trump was sticking with or changing a central promise to use a “deportation force” to expel immigrants here illegally.

And they didn’t bother defending his initial response Saturday to the killing of a mother as she walked her baby on a Chicago street.

Questioned on whether leaving key details on immigration policy unclear so late in the election is a problem, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus demurred: “I just don’t speak for Donald Trump.”

It was a striking look at Trump’s leadership of a team he had said would help drive him to victory in the Nov. 8 election.

Surrogates speak for and back up their presidential nominee. But Team Trump’s struggled to do so even as they stayed tightly together on the details they know: Trump will issue more details on the immigration plan soon, the policy will be humane, and despite his clear wavering, he’s been “consistent” on the issue. Any discussion of inconsistencies or potentially unpresidential tweeting, Pence and others suggested, reflected media focus on the wrong issue.

Asked whether the “deportation force” proposal Trump laid out in November is still in place, Pence replied: “Well, what you heard him describe there, in his usual plainspoken, American way, was a mechanism, not a policy.”

Added Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway: “The softening is more approach than policy,” adding that on immigration, Trump “wants to find a fair and humane way.”

The Indiana governor, Conway and other surrogates said the main tenets of Trump’s immigration plan still will include building a wall along the southern U.S. border and making Mexico pay for it, no path to status adjustment or citizenship for people here illegally and stronger border enforcement. Pence also did not answer whether the campaign believes, as Trump has said, that children born to people who are in the U.S. illegally are not U.S. citizens. That, he said, “is a subject for the future.”

Native-born children of immigrants, even those living illegally in the U.S., have been automatically considered American citizens since 1868.

Trump has focused lately on deporting people who are in the U.S. illegally and who have committed crimes. But who Trump considers a criminal remained unclear Sunday.

Trump in recent days has suggested he might be “softening” on the deportation force and that he might be open to allowing at least some immigrants in the country illegally to stay, as long as they pay taxes.

But by Thursday, he was ruling out any kind of legal status – “unless they leave the country and come back,” he told CNN.

Recent polls indicate Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is ahead in some of the most competitive and pivotal states.

The first presidential debate is set for Sept. 26.

His surrogates on Sunday refused to comment on Trump’s reaction to the fatal shooting of NBA star Dwyane Wade’s cousin Friday, as she pushed her baby in a stroller in Chicago.

Trump’s first tweet about the shooting ended this way: “Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!”

A few hours later, he followed up with a tweet offering condolences to Wade and his family.

Asked whether the initial tweet was presidential or appropriate, GOP officials and campaign advisers instead talked about reducing crime or said they were pleased Trump followed up with a tweet of condolence and empathy.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the media “focus on process ... instead of the message.” He said the killing of someone pushing a stroller “is unacceptable in an American city” and that “the level of violence in Chicago is unacceptable.”

Pence appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Priebus was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Christie was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week” and Conway was on Fox and CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

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