Hours after a subdued Donald Trump met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City Wednesday, the Republican candidate outlined a detailed plan to combat and enforce laws against illegal immigration.
In the speech, the Republican presidential candidate returned to a hard line position, backing away from a softer, more compassionate approach that he had signaled in recent weeks.
“Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation,” Trump said, reiterating a position he’s expressed before, but recently backed away from. “That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Otherwise we don’t have a country.”
To accomplish the goal of deporting more illegal immigrants, Trump’s proposed ways of expanding the already existing deportation task force, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as ICE.
“We’re going to triple the number of ICE deportation officers,” Trump said, adding that he would organize a special task force to assist in the deportation process focused on “identifying and quickly removing the most dangerous criminal illegal immigrants.”
“The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants or however many there may be—and honestly we’ve been hearing that number for years,” Trump said before questioning the number of illegal immigrants in the United States.
“It’s always 11 million. Our government has no idea. It could be 3 million. It could be 30 million. They have no idea what the number is,” he continued.
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