Trump’s positions – Immigration (re-posted)

Like it or not, there is a fairly good chance Donald Trump will be our next president. Even if his persuasion techniques, so successful in the primaries, are insufficient to overcome the all-out political and media establishment attacks, Hillary may lose because she is indicted, because a large proportion of Sander’s supporter are too embittered to support her (as some recent polls suggest), or simply because her campaign will again, as in 2008, be too boring, uninspiring and inept.

Given that possibility, it is worth looking at what we know of Donald Trump’s positions on major issues. The issue here isn’t whether one agrees with those positions, but simply whether they really are as outlandish as the (largely liberal, largely Clinton biased) media has been painting them. Let’s start with immigration.

The biggest fuss the media have made is about his proposal to build a fence across the 2000 mile US-Mexican border. Yes, that is probably not really practical, and may, as Scott Adams suggests, just be an “anchoring” opening offer from which he can now negotiate down to something reasonable. But note that over the past eight years the Democratic establishment, which is so critical of his plan, have in fact themselves already built over 500 miles of wall/fence on this border – about ¼ of what Trump has proposed. So it’s dumb if Trump proposes it, but not if Obama builds it?

 Border fence under construction in Eagle Pass, Texas

Moreover, a February 2016 Rasmussen poll found 70 percent of Republican voters - and 51 percent of voters overall - support Trump's border wall plan. So apparently at least half of the American public think this isn’t such a dumb idea.

What about his proposal to deport all the illegal immigrants? Liberals want to give most of them some sort of amnesty and a path to citizenship. Trump points out that there is a backlog of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of people from around the world who have applied for legal immigration and have been waiting, many for years, to immigrate – is it fair to let illegal immigrants jump the queue ahead of those applying legally?  Seems to me like a perfectly valid question.

Oh and by the way, it is the Obama administration that has been deporting illegal immigrants faster than any previous administration – about 2.5 million people since 2009.  Once again, it’s terrible if Trump proposes it, but just fine if Obama is doing it?