Hispanics may not buy more ‘humane’ Trump
Critics say his hint of a softer stand on illegal immigrants is unlikely to bear fruit
Call it a pivot, a restart or just a “softening” of his stance, but proimmigration groups are not impressed with Donald Trump’s change in tone this week and his promise of new policies to handle the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.
“I have seen over many years when politicians get to that ‘uhoh’ moment when they realize they’ve gone too far and they’re falling over a nativist cliff,” said Angela Kelley, executive director of the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund. “It’s too late to course correct. You just can’t cover up with any amount of makeup the tattoo of xenophobia and racism that is on his forehead.”
After a year of promising to build a border wall with Mexico and deport all of the nation’s undocumented immigrants, Trump has seen his poll numbers with Hispanics plummet even lower than the 27% Mitt Romney received in the 2012 election. So this week, Trump said in a series of TV interviews that he will approach the issue in a more “humane manner.”
He talked about a merit system for allowing immigrants into the country and hinted, in broad terms, at offering undocumented immigrants some kind of legal status. He said they would not be eligible for U.S. citizenship, but the shift was jarring for a candidate whose candidacy was based on often hard-line rhetoric on the issue since its launch more than a year ago.
Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a Washington-based group that advocates for legal status for undocumented immigrants, called Trump’s pronouncements minor “rhetorical shifts” that don’t change his underlying goal of mass deportations.
Sharry said Trump’s shift shows that the real estate mogul is paying at least some attention to the chorus of voices saying he has gone too far, including a Hispanic advisory council Trump’s campaign put together to advise the nominee on that electorate. But Sharry said he remained skeptical of any true change.
If Trump lays out a softer immigration policy, the group who may be most upset are his longtime supporters.
Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates for lower immigration, said it was a shock to hear Trump open the door for some undocumented immigrants to remain. “We are opposed to providing them legal status,” he said.
Hillary Clinton continued to defend the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department during her time in the administration Friday.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Clinton said she was sure that there were no foundation ties that could harm her chance of becoming president.
“I am sure because I have a very strong foundation of understanding about the foundation,” Clinton said. “The kind of work that the foundation has done, which attracted donors from around the world, is work that went right into providing services to people.”
Clinton also reiterated that neither she nor former president Bill Clinton nor their daughter, Chelsea, ever accepted money from the foundation.
“My work as secretary of State was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interests abroad,” Clinton said.
“I believe my aides also acted appropriately. And we have gone above and beyond most of the charities that I understand, beyond the legal requirements, beyond standards, to voluntarily disclose donors, and also to reduce sources of funding that raised any questions, not that Hillary Clinton we thought they were necessarily legitimate, but to avoid those questions.”
Clinton’s comments come at the end of a hard week for the Democratic nominee as more emails from her private server were released and reports raised questions about overlap between her family’s charity and her role in the State Department.
Donald Trump and Republicans have accused Clinton of creating a culture of “pay to play” during her time as secretary of State and have called for a special prosecutor and for the Clinton Foundation to be shut down.
The Republican National Committee responded to Clinton’s MSNBC interview with an email with the subject line, “Mark It Down: Clinton Promises No New Email Revelations.”
“Mark it down, Hillary Clinton is really confident BleachBit worked.” Bleachbit is a software tool used to delete emails.
Thursday, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Clinton had used the software to delete emails, according to Politico.