Trump Backed Amnesty For Illegal Aliens Only Last June
Trump Backed Amnesty For Illegal Aliens Only Last June
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12/17/2015 06:46 PM ET
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Greenville, S.C.
Election '16: The centerpiece of GOP front-runner Donald Trump's presidential campaign is his hard-line stance on immigration. But he was for amnesty before he was against it. And it wasn't that long ago.
Trump supporters concerned that unfettered immigration will bring liberalism into permanent dominance over the American electorate and society — and that probably describes most of them — don't know Donald like they think they know Donald.
You don't have to go back far to find a pro-amnesty statement from the No. 1 defender of deportation. At the end of June, speaking to the press in Chicago and after saying he "heard you probably have 30 million" illegal aliens in America, Trump contended:
"You have to give them a path, and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that. But the bad ones, and there are bad ones, you have to get out, and you have to get them out fast."
That's "path" as in "path to citizenship," not a path to exit the country via our southern border. And it's clear he was referring to the bulk of the millions of aliens. The "bad ones" he would deport he depicts as a minority of the illegals. How small a minority is wide open to speculation.
Several weeks after President Obama's 2012 re-election, Trump, interviewed by Newsmax's Ron Kessler, blasted Mitt Romney's "crazy policy of self-deportation." It was "maniacal," he said, contending it cost the Republican "all of the Latino vote" and adding "he lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country."
Trump told Kessler that the Republicans must develop comprehensive immigration reform "to take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful, productive citizens of this country."
Contrasting the two parties on the issues, Trump told Kessler, "The Democrats didn't have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren't mean-spirited about it. ... What they were is they were kind."
Now, perhaps The Donald will try to claim what he meant in 2012 was if Romney had proposed forced deportation of illegals, it wouldn't have been "maniacal" or "mean-spirited," and would have garnered more of the Latino vote. But it's doubtful that even his ever-forgiving supporters would swallow that explanation.
In Tuesday night's debate, Trump sneered, "Jeb (Bush) is a very nice person" and "Jeb said when they come across the southern border, they come as an act of love." But Trump's reference to immigrants, legal and illegal, as "people wanting to be wonderful, productive citizens of this country" sounds awfully similar.
"I have a very hard-line position," Trump claimed in Las Vegas. "People that have come into our country illegally, they have to go."
"They have to go" is quite a flipflop from the "you have to give them a path" position that Trump took only five and a half months ago.
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