Trump : More than 6 Million Immigrants Could Be Deported

Just hours after he returned from a hastily-arranged trip to Mexico, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in a hardline speech on Thursday that if elected he would deport as many as 6 million undocumented immigrants who had committed crimes as well as those who had overstayed their visas.

    The much anticipated speech lowered the number of those Trump wants deported from 11 million, but still remains a highly controversial position, especially in Mexico.

    Trump met Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Wednesday.  Trump called Nieto "a man I like and respect very much." "We discussed the great contributions of Mexican-American citizens to our two countries, my love for the people of Mexico, and the leadership and friendship between Mexico and the United States," he said. "It was a thoughtful and substantive conversation and it will go on for a while. And, in the end we're all going to win. Both countries, we're all going to win." At a press conference following their meeting, Nieto said Mexico also suffered from a porous border with the United States.

    "Every year millions of weapons and millions of dollars cross illegally into Mexico from the north that strengthen cartels and other criminal organizations that generate violence in Mexico and receives earnings from drug sales in the United States," said Nieto.

    "This flow has to be stopped. What we need is an integral focus toward the border that addresses the traffic of undocumented people and the illegal flow of drugs, weapons and cash at the same time." Though Nieto tweeted that he told Trump Mexico would not pay for a wall on the border that Trump has repeatedly vowed to build, the Republican candidate repeated his mantra in his speech when he returned to the U.S., saying he would build a "great wall along the southern border," and that Mexico would fund it.

    In the emotional speech in Phoenix, Arizona, a state that borers Mexico, Trump called for the creation of a "special deportation task force" that would hunt down undocumented immigrants, which he labeled a "security threat." "The police and law enforcement  they know who these people are. They live with these people. They get mocked by these people," he said. "They can't do anything about these people, and they want to. They know who these people are. Day one, my first hour in office, those people are gone." A study by the Migration Policy Institute says there are 690,000 undocumented migrants in the U.S. who have committed crimes, though some estimates that Trump favors go as high as 2 million. About 40% of visitors to the U.S. overstay their visas, which is about 4.5 million people. "You can call it deported if you want. The press doesn't like that term. You can call it whatever the hell you want. They're gone," Trump said. 

    Trump has spoken favorably of the 1954 deportation of two million Mexicans during the Eisenhower administration. His plan would be on a similar scale.

    Trump rejected any possibility of an amnesty for undocumented immigrants, which would give them a chance to gain U.S. citizenship, a position favored by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. "We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration. We will break the cycle. There will be no amnesty," he said. "Our message to the world will be this. You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. Can't do it." Trump added: "Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have law."  He said that those deported could then apply for legal immigration "like everybody else."

Source: QNA