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Thread: Trump's Immigration Policy Trap

  1. #1

    Trump's Immigration Policy Trap

    Other than promising to build a wall, Trump has avoiding saying what he would actually do about the immigration issue. Just as he has avoided details on other issues as well. But he has "big plans".

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...y-trap/497822/

    The biggest political story of the last week has been Donald Trump’s flip-flop on deporting undocumented immigrants. This Sunday on CNN, Mike Pence filibustered his way through the subject for almost seven minutes before Jake Tapper finally declared, “You did not address the issue” and moved on. Chris Christie on ABC and Kellyanne Conway on CBS were no more coherent. The Daily Beast summed up the morning with the headline, “Immigration Flip-Flop Leaves Trump Campaign Flailing on Sunday Shows.”

    But focusing on Trump’s “flip-flop” misses the point. Trump’s real problem isn’t that he’s changed his position on immigration. It’s that he’s trying to formulate one at all.

    What the commentary of the last few days has generally overlooked is that while immigration was key to Trump’s success in the Republican primary, Trump never actually offered an immigration policy. To the contrary, his success rested in large measure on his ability to avoid one. Trump’s strategy on immigration, as on other key issues, was to cut through the Gordian knot of public policy with aggressive, quick fix solutions. Terrorism? Ban Muslims. ISIS? Bomb the hell out of them and take their oil. Loss of manufacturing jobs? Slap massive tariffs on companies that outsource American jobs.

    On immigration, Trump’s quick fix was building a wall. And he hawked it endlessly, in part because it allowed him to sidestep the public-policy debate that had been tearing the GOP apart: what to do about the undocumented already in the U.S. Trump rarely mentioned deportation, perhaps because he sensed it would draw him into the public-policy quagmire he wished to avoid.

    In his June 16 announcement speech, Trump famously said that Mexicans were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” But despite referencing immigrants already in the United States, Trump said nothing about what to do with them. His only immigration proposal was to “build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”

    At the first GOP debate on August 11, Trump again declared that, “We need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly.” Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush then argued about why their proposals for dealing with America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants didn’t constitute “amnesty.” But Trump avoided the subject entirely.

    At the second debate, on September 16, CNN’s Jake Tapper tried to make Trump discuss the undocumented already in the country. Tapper quoted Chris Christie as saying that, “There are not enough law enforcement officers—local, county, state, and federal combined—to forcibly deport 11 to 12 million people.” Trump responded that, “First of all, I want to build a wall, a wall that works.” Then he said, “we have a lot of really bad dudes in this country from outside … They go, if I get elected, first day they’re gone. Gangs all over the place. Chicago, Baltimore, no matter where you look.” Tapper then turned to Christie, who discussed the logistical impossibility of deportation. After that, Trump and Jeb Bush sparred about whether Trump has insulted Bush’s Mexican-born wife. Lost in the melee was the fact that Trump had promised only to deport undocumented immigrants who are violent criminals. He had ducked Tapper’s question about the entire 11 million.

    Finally, in the third debate, on October 28, CNBC’s John Harwood mentioned that Trump had promised “to build a wall” and “send 11 million people out of the country.” Trump ignored the reference to deporting 11 million and focused his answer on the wall, which, he noted, would be only one-thirteenth as long as the Great Wall of China and would have a “big, fat beautiful door right in the middle.”
    Why is Trump now ensnared in the very net he avoided for so long? Because Kellyanne Conway, who specializes in making conservative politicians appealing to moderate female voters, decided that in order to soften Trump’s image, she needed to soften his immigration policy. What she appears not to have realized is that softening Trump’s immigration policy requires actually formulating one, something The Donald had wisely avoided for more than a year.



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  3. #2
    So now that Trump has come out for amnesty and open immigration, will all of the never Trump people become Trump supporters and vice versa?
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
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  4. #3
    He still hasn't actually come out for amnesty either. He is "formulating his policy" and will have a speech on it "soon" (supposedly as soon as a couple weeks ago- it keeps getting postponed). The problem with details is you turn off somebody. Without details, people assume you agree with their position.

    Trump also said he was going to replace Obamacare. With what? Some "secret" new program. (and probably another big government one).

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    So now that Trump has come out for amnesty and open immigration, will all of the never Trump people become Trump supporters and vice versa?
    "never" means there is nothing he can do that would gain their support. Unless the person saying it is marcorubio.
    “I don’t think that there will be any curtailing of Donald Trump as president,” he said. "He controls the media, he controls the sentiment [and] he controls everybody. He’s the one who will resort to executive orders more so than [President] Obama ever used them." - Ron Paul



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