By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
No pivot on immigration from Donald Trump. In a fiery stump speech, the Republican presidential candidate played to his core supporters and doubled down on his hard line stance — a 10-point plan including absolutely zero amnesty and a Deportation Task Force to evict what he called “criminal aliens”.
“Anyone who’s entered the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Otherwise we don’t have a country… You can’t just smuggle in, hunker down and wait to be legalized. Not going to work that way,” Trump said.
“He’s a carnival barker, sort of a hateful clown,” said Frank Argote-Freyre, president emeritus for the Latino Action Network.
And Jersey advocates for undocumented immigrants found nothing to applaud.
“What the speech did was so firmly entrench this notion that immigrants are criminals. He must have said that I don’t know 40 times,” Argote-Freyre said.
Trump appeared to soften his approach earlier in the day, during a visit with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Trump insists they never discussed the infamous border wall, but Nieto later tweeted he’d told Trump Mexico won’t finance his wall.
Here’s Trump’s takeaway: “We will build a great wall along our southern border … and Mexico will pay for the wall. … They don’t know it yet but they’re going to pay for it.”
Trump also promised to keep U.S. jobs for Americans and deny benefits to undocumented immigrants, much to the chagrin of Hispanic business leaders.
“It paints a broad brush that Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants drain the U.S. economy when it’s quite the contrary. … They’re paying taxes via Social Security so they’re paying into the system and not getting anything back,” said New Jersey Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Carlos Medina.
A June poll showed Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a 66-to-24 percent lead over Trump, but the margin narrows to just seven points for Hispanics whose dominant language is English — 41 percent back Trump — including Hector Olmo, a Republican and Tenafly cop. He says Trump speaks the truth.
“I think it was a great speech. Yeah, I think he did a good job,” he said.
Olmo agrees with Trump’s plan to triple the number of ICE officers, deport criminal aliens and demand extreme vetting of people applying for visas.
“Applicants will be asked for their views about honor killings, about respect for women and gays and minorities,” Trump said.
“And if you come here illegally, you have to go back and come in the right way. So that we know who is in the country, what their purposes are for and what their ideology is,” Olmo said.
Trump appeared to back burner plans for mass forced deportation, but immigration advocates don’t buy that.
“He’s going to go after what he considers criminals first and then get to the others later. So anyone who thinks that he won’t get to you eventually is mistaken,” said Latino Action Network President Chris Estevez.
Will Trump’s speech move the polls, close the gap with Clinton? Analysts say probably not, at least not with Hispanics.