Trump Returns To His Hardline Position On Immigration

The Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on 31 August. In this meeting he appeared to speak with a helpful tone as he faced a world leader who is against his signature proposals.

Notably Nieto told Trump in a face-to-face meeting that Mexico would not pay for the ‘great border wall’ between the two countries. “At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall,” Nieto tweeted.

However, within hours following the meeting, Trump guaranteed that anyone who is illegally in the United States would be deported if he is elected, returning to his hardline position.

As part of a major speech in Arizona, Trump said if he wins the 8 November presidential election, all people staying in the United States illegally would have “to return home and apply for re-entry.”

“Our message to the world will be this: You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country…People will know you can’t just smuggle in, hunker down and wait to be legalised.. Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have a country.”

Trump again reemphasised that Mexico would pay for “the wall”-

“We will build a great wall along the southern border…And Mexico will pay for the wall - 100 percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.”

Through the Phoenix speech, Trump returned to the hardline rhetoric reassuring his anti-immigration supporters. It is well-known that Trump’s “America First” positions are aimed at bringing together middle-class people who feel they have lost jobs to illegal immigrants.

In the same speech he also said he would form a commission to study which regions he would suspend immigration from, declaring Syria and Libya would be high on his list. This is in line with Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from some countries to enter the US.