Trump wants to build a wall and bill Mexico
The bombast- heavy, detail- light presidential campaign of Donald Trump has entered a new phase: that of releasing a few policy specifics spelling out how he’d govern.
For weeks, the reality star- businessman has led Republican primary polls without any platform details on his website and he’s skated when asked about substance.
But in an indication that he intends his presidential run to be more than a mere celebrity stunt, he’s hired staff in early primary states and he released his first platform paper Sunday. Cue the controversy. The eight- page paper on immigration threatens the government of Mexico, the business community, and millions of families living in the U. S. under uncertain legal status.
It’s the kind of stuff that’s made him an early favourite in polls of Republican supporters, as yet another survey Sunday showed him with a double- digit lead over his next primary rival.
One section explains how he’d achieve an unlikely feat: build a multibillion- dollar wall across the southern border, and get the Mexican government to pay for it.
Trump says he’d apply financial pressure until the Mexicans pay up. He says he’d impound cross- border remittance payments linked to illegal wages; hike fees for work visas for Mexican CEOs and diplomats, and potentially even cancel them; and increase fees for border- crossing cards and NAFTA worker visas from Mexico.
“The Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners,” says the Trump paper.
“They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.”
The plan goes on like this for eight pages.
He would triple the number of U. S. immigration officers; end jobs visas for foreign students; defund so- called sanctuary cities that shelter undocumented migrants; detain and deport undocumented migrants; suspend the granting of green cards until more unemployed Americans enter the workforce; and, in one of its more controversial proposals, end automatic citizenship for babies born in the U. S.
Trump has also said he’d undo President Barack Obama’s executive orders, including one that granted residency rights to the children of people who entered the U. S. illegally.
Those actions would affect millions of people.
When pressed in an interview Sunday about the potential turmoil his plan would cause, Trump was unapologetic. He said that after booting people out, he’d subsequently assess applications to let some back in.
“They have to go,” Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press.
“Either we have a country or we don’t.”