According to Buzzfeed today, Trump indicated to Hispanics in a private meeting that he would be open to amnesty for illegal aliens!
In a Saturday meeting with his newly announced Hispanic advisory council, Donald Trump suggested he is interested in figuring out a “humane and efficient” manner to deal with immigrants in the country illegally, according to three sources. Trump, however, stressed that any new announcements will still be in line with the border security-focused approach that has invited intense opposition from Latinos and immigrants since he launched his campaign.
“He said people who are here is the toughest part of the immigration debate, that it must be something that respects border security but deals with this in a humane and efficient manner,” said Jacob Monty, a Houston-based immigration lawyer who sat in Trump Tower with other Latino supporters and Trump.
“The idea is we’re not getting someone in front of the line, we’re doing it in a legal way, but he wants to hear ideas of how we deal with 11 million people that are here with no documents,” said Jose Fuentes, who was chair of Mitt Romney’s Hispanic advisory committee in 2012, and attended the meeting.
Importantly, Trump did not explicitly use the word “legalization,” but sources in the room said they feel it is the direction the campaign is going.
Rick Figueroa, a Texas member of the new advisory council said it would be a stretch to say Trump will absolutely support some form of legalization, but lauded the candidate for being open to listening, saying Trump spent 80 to 90% of the meeting listening.
Ironically, he had said this before a long time ago before he ran for president when he met with illegal aliens at Trump Towers – he told them he would be open for amnesty at that meeting as well. It must be noted also that he criticized Mitt Romney for his “self-deportation” stance in 2012, saying it was too harsh and would turn off Hispanics. I have to say however, that Buzzfeed is stretching it a little, as it sounds like he just said he was open to listening to amnesty advocates. Even that should anger those in his base who support him just for that one issue. Or they’ll just say that he was being nice to them, and that he doesn’t really mean it…