Friday, May 20, 2016

Donald Trump Pivots on Immigration?

This is something I've talked about in my classes, especially since Trump met with the editorial board of the New York Times (and backed off his earlier statements on building the wall and deportation).

Trump needs to be careful not to alienate his core supporters. He can't back off too much from his tough-on-immigration theme.

Here's Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Time: Here comes Donald Trump’s pivot on immigration."

And at Time Magazine, "Exclusive: Donald Trump Shifts Immigration Tone in Meeting with Hispanic Evangelical Leader":

Deportations photo Bs7P--gCAAAIZP6_zpssxo982oj.jpg
No commitments to change policy

In a clear sign of a pivot towards the general election, Donald Trump privately discussed immigration policy on May 11 with a representative of the largest Hispanic evangelical association at Trump Tower.

The representative left the meeting expressing surprise at how supportive the presumptive Republican nominee had been. “Donald Trump showed a tremendous understanding and concern for the undocumented immigrants,” evangelical pastor Mario Bramnick. “We all came out really sensing his genuineness.”

Bramnick, a Cuban-American who advised Sen. Ted Cruz during the primary, came to the meeting as a representative of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), which has more than 40,000 member churches. The group’s leader, pastor Samuel Rodriguez Jr., has been openly critical of Trump’s plan to build a southern wall and deport with force the roughly 10 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. “It’s impossible,” Rodriguez says. “You’d have to have a Gestapo sort of apparatus, in the vein of World War II, putting people not on trains but airplanes.”

But in the meeting, Bramnick said Trump suggested a clear willingness to work with the Hispanic community. While Trump did not say he would revisit any of his policies, he signaled an openness to continue the conversation, Bramnick said...
Boy, that's like threading a needle. It's going to tricky getting this just right, attracting Hispanics but not throwing your massive white working-class base under the bus.

More.

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