No, Donald Trump Didn’t Flip-Flop on Immigration
One of Donald Trump’s great strengths as a candidate is that he doesn’t play by the insider-imposed rules of politics; he says what’s on his mind.
Trump’s public out-loud musings about policy and various issues in the campaign have more than once let the air out of his momentum as he tried to clarify them after his detractors in the establishment media and the #NeverTrump crowd pounced upon them for an “ah ha” moment of criticism or claims of flip-flopping.
And no issue has provided more of these “ah ha” moments than Trump’s public musings on the issues of immigration and amnesty for illegal aliens.
Donald Trump opened his campaign with the observations that Mexico does not send us its best citizens as illegal immigrants and that among these illegal immigrants were criminal drug dealers, rapists and other undesirable entrants into our country.
Trump’s observation was unquestionably true, but it was met with howls of protest by the open borders crowd from the Far Left and the Republicans aligned with the Wall Street—Washington—Silicon Valley Axis.
The same with Trump’s comments that there should be a halt to Muslim immigration “until we figure out what’s going on.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other jihadi front groups were quick to condemn the remarks as Islamophobic, while no less a figure than Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who has made increasing Muslim immigration his special project, called it unconstitutional, even though it most certainly is not.
Trump’s musings on interior enforcement of immigration laws and the need for it perhaps requiring a special enforcement unit likewise generated howls on the Left and criticism from the Republican establishment and navel-gazing civil libertarians. Never mind that such a force already exists; it’s just been told by Obama not to do any enforcing.
The latest contretemps about Donald Trump’s public musings on how his immigration policies might work was kicked-off when Trump said in a TV interview that aired Wednesday night that his time on the campaign trail has made him sympathetic to the plight of many undocumented people who have been in the U.S. for a long time.
“Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity according to reporting by the anti-Trump New York Daily News. “But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and they’ve said, ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump.’ I have it all the time! It’s a very, very hard thing.”
Still, Trump said there would be “no amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, even if they have committed no crimes.
“No citizenship,” Trump said. “Let me go a step further: They’ll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty, as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them.”
Trump also dismissed the notion of “sanctuary cities.”
“We’re protecting criminals,” he said. “And the police, who are phenomenal people, they’re at a point where they almost give up.”
So where’s the flip-flop in Trump’s stance?
There isn’t one, but acknowledging that actually enforcing our existing laws after years of no enforcement will be “tough” and a “very, very hard thing” can be made to sound like a flip-flop, especially if you are looking for any excuse to undercut Trump and discredit his core message.
“I’ve had a philosophy, ‘Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are,'” CHQ Chairman Richard Viguerie recently told NewsMax‘s Steve Malzberg. “If you look at Donald Trump’s campaign now … These are charter members of the conservative movement. It’s very exciting. I haven’t seen anything like this since the 1980 Reagan campaign against [Jimmy] Carter.”
Viguerie said the campaign reset bringing Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway aboard “is a step in the right direction” to win over the pockets of #NeverTrump Republicans.
“Don’t focus on Trump, focus on Hillary,” Viguerie said. “Trump as president, he might be wrong 20, 25, 30 percent of the time. But Hillary Clinton is going to be wrong 100 percent of the time … Her goal will be to destroy the conservative movement. Donald Trump will be helping to advance the conservative movement.”
Viguerie told Malzberg that Republicans needed to do two things to win this election: feature a candidate who’s a fighter and unite the party.
Donald Trump is a fighter and hopefully, Trump’s new team will take Mr. Viguerie’s advice to focus on Hillary and help him avoid these public stream-of-consciousness musings on how his policies might work.
In the meantime, we invite Republicans and independents who want to avoid living under Hillary Clinton, as we have lived under Barack Obama, to unite with us and observe Ronald Reagan’s 80 percent rule: Someone who is 80 percent with you is a friend, not a 20 percent enemy.
We know Hillary Clinton is going to be wrong 100 percent of the time. Her goal will be to destroy the conservative movement. On the other hand, Donald Trump, public musings and all, will be helping to advance American exceptionalism, national sovereignty, religious liberty and many other elements of the conservative movement’s agenda.
George Rasley is editor of ConservativeHQ, a member of American MENSA and a veteran of over 300 political campaigns, including every Republican presidential campaign from 1976 to 2008. He served as lead advance representative for Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and has served as a staff member, consultant or advance representative for some of America’s most recognized conservative Republican political figures, including President Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. He served in policy and communications positions on the House and Senate staff, and during the George H.W. Bush administration he served on the White House staff of Vice President Dan Quayle.
