Trump Shifts Back to Hardline Stance on Illegal Immigration

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, on August 25. Carlo Allegri/Reuters


In a major speech in the border state of Arizona, Trump took a dim view of the 11 million people who crossed into the United States illegally, a week after saying many were "great people" who had lived in the country for years and contributed to American society.

He said all people in the United States illegally would have "only one route" to gain legal status ifTrump were to win the Nov. 8 presidential election: "To return home and apply for re-entry."


"People will know you can't just smuggle in, hunker down and wait to be legalized," he said. "Those days are over."

Trump again vowed that Mexico would pay for construction of a "great border wall" between the two countries. He spoke hours after Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told Trump in a face-to-face meeting in Mexico City that Mexico would not pay for it.

"We will build a great wall along the southern border," Trump said. "And Mexico will pay for the wall - 100 percent. They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for the wall."



Hardline Return


Ann Coulter, a conservative activist who had fretted that Trump might be softening, tweeted: "I hear Churchill had a nice turn of phrase, but Trump's immigration speech is the most magnificent speech ever given."


"Tonight confirmed what we knew all along - there is no 'softening'," Correct The Record spokeswoman Elizabeth Shappell said.

Trump's "America First" positions are aimed at rallying middle-class people who feel they have lost jobs to illegal immigrants or to the outsourcing of jobs abroad.


In his speech, Trump emphasized that his priority would be to quickly deport those among the undocumented population who have committed serious crimes.

"As with any law enforcement activity, we will set priorities," Trump said. "Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have a country."


Trump said he would also establish a "deportation task force" to identify criminals subject to deportation, would triple the number of federal deportation officers, and increase the number of border patrol stations.

Mild Rebuke, Protests

Trump is trailing Clinton in opinion polls and the New York businessman's aides hoped the trip would make him look presidential and show he was willing to deal head-on with thorny issues such as relations with Mexico.



A few dozen demonstrators gathered beneath a monument to Mexican independence in the center of the capital to protest against the visit, some holding placards emblazoned with captions such as: "You are not Wall-come" and "Trump and Pena out."


