PHOENIX – In a much anticipated speech on immigration, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump maintained his hard-line stance, vowing “no amnesty” for undocumented migrants living in the US and promising to build a border wall that Mexico would pay for.
“It’s tuned only to his white nationalist base,” Rick Wilson, a conservative political consultant who has embraced Evan McMullin’s third-party presidential bid, tweeted, The BBC reported on Thursday, September 1.
“They’re giggling and drooling over themselves,” he added, calling Trump’s speech “hideous word vomit”.
In Wednesday’s speech, Trump re-upped the harsh immigration rhetoric that electrified his primary campaign, vowing “no amnesty” for undocumented migrants living in the US and promising to build a “beautiful” and “impenetrable” border wall.
He vowed that Mexico would pay for this wall, just hours after that country’s president vowed that it wouldn’t.
“This election is our last chance to secure the border, stop illegal immigration, and reform our laws to make your life better,” Trump said in Phoenix at the end of a dizzying day in which he made his first foray into international diplomacy with a visit to Mexico City.
Trump did not give a definitive answer about what he would do with most of the 11 million undocumented people who are not criminals, leaving open the possibility they would have to continue to hide in the shadows.
Yet, he vowed to create a “deportation task force” within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division “focused on identifying and quickly removing the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens in America,” the CNN reported.
Just hours earlier a much more subdued Trump had said he spoke about the border wall in a private meeting with the Mexican president, but the subject of financing hadn’t been discussed. “That’ll be for a later date,” he said.
Controversial
Reaction to the speech was sharply divided between his hard-line anti-immigration camp and other politicians rejecting it as “harsh” and “bigoted”.
“I hear Churchill had a nice turn of phrase, but Trump’s immigration speech is the most magnificent speech ever given,” quipped conservative commentator Ann Coulter, BBC reported.
David Duke, the former Klu Klux Klan leader turned would-be politician, praised the speech.
“Excellent speech by Donald Trump tonight,” he tweeted.
“Deport criminal aliens, end catch-and-release, enforce immigration laws and America First.”
Isaac Chotiner of Slate said that the speech should put to bed any talk of a Trump pivot.
“After Wednesday night’s loud, angry and hateful speech on immigration, it should be impossible to view him as anything but a demagogue,” he wrote.
Over the past months, Trump has been accused of fueling anti-Islamic sentiment, pointedly calling for Muslims to be prevented from entering the United States in December last year.
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