Dalton –As Donald Trump readies what he’s calling a major speech on illegal immigration, Georgia Republicans are wary the GOP nominee could be backing away from a hardline stance that has been a centerpiece of his campaign.
That apprehension was evident as Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, traveled across Georgia on Monday and Tuesday. The Indiana governor was met with a flurry of concerns from conservative voters worried the campaign was softening its vow to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and deport the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.
“We are too lax with our immigration policy. We need to make our borders much more secure,” said Cindy Rogers, a facility manager from Austell at Pence’s Cobb County rally. “My grandparents came in legally. Why can’t others follow the rules?”
Trump’s tough talk on immigration has won him ardent support and helped him emerge from a crowded field of Republican contenders to win the GOP nomination. But trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton in national polls and surveys in battleground states, he’s under pressure by some Republicans to temper his tone.
With just 10 weeks remaining until Election Day, his campaign has sent mixed signals on whether that would happen. In a tweet, Trump said he would address the matter with a “major” speech in Arizona on Wednesday.
In an interview Monday, Pence told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Trump’s stance on immigration from earlier in the campaign is “exactly the same as the principles he’s standing on today” but that the campaign expects to add more details on Wednesday.
“But make no mistake about it – ending illegal immigration, securing our borders, including building a wall, implementing an E-verify system, enforcing the laws of this country, upholding the Constitution – that’s all the foundation of what Donald Trump has been talking about up to this point,” said Pence. “And he’ll continue talking about it from now to Nov. 8.”
For Trump, moderating his views on immigration comes carries a large risk: alienating the passionate supporters who propelled him to the nomination in the first place.
“Listen, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary for anything. Trump is the best choice. But on immigration, Trump has to find the happy medium, and it looks like he’s trying to find it,” said Jim Whitehead, a retiree at Pence’s Dalton rally. “Building a wall, getting rid of the bad folks and finding a mechanism so the good folks stay in – that’s the ticket.”
June Weeks, a Trump supporter from Warner Robins, agreed.
“I don’t want to throw a bunch of people out on their heads – I want them to be productive citizens. But if you’re not here legally, then you are not enforcing the law,” Weeks said.
Trump trailing among Hispanic voters
Trump initially proposed deporting all of the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S., saying a “deportation force” would be required to round them up. But last week he indicated he was open to letting immigrants without legal status stay in the U.S. so long as they pay back taxes. To some political observers that sounded a lot like the proposals floated by a few rivals Trump vanquished in the GOP primary.
Drawing fire from his right flank, Trump changed his tone again on Thursday during an interview on CNN, saying there would be no path to legal status for immigrants living illegally in the U.S. unless “they leave the country and then come back.” Then on Sunday, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Trump “is not talking about a deportation force, but he is talking about being fair and humane.”
At the same time, Trump has not backed off his proposal to build a new wall on the southwest border at Mexico’s expense. He has also said he wants to end automatic birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of those living here illegally and scrap an Obama administration program that grants deportation deferrals and work permits to immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children.
Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-area immigration attorney who teaches immigration law at Emory University, doesn’t expect Trump to change his positions during his speech in Arizona.
“There is nothing Donald Trump is going to say tomorrow that is going to change and be any different from the build a wall, deport-everybody and figure it out later plan that he has proposed from the beginning,” Kuck predicted, saying Trump is taking his policy advice from anti-immigration hardliners.
Kuck added that he was struck by how Trump turned to his audience during an interview on Fox News last week for responses to proposals on immigration enforcement in what Trump said was “like a poll.”
“I thought that was monumentally inappropriate for a man who wants to be president of the United States,” said Kuck, a Republican. “These are families that include U.S. citizens, hardworking members of society, entrepreneurs and business owners. The more you denigrate them — the more you separate them — the less you have the ability to bring people together after the election.”
Trump is already struggling among Hispanic voters. A nationwide telephone survey in June by the Pew Research Center found 66 percent of registered Hispanic supporters would support Clinton compared to 24 percent for Trump. Trump, who has accused Mexico of sending “rapists” to the U.S., came under criticism in June for saying a Mexican-American judge presiding over civil fraud lawsuits against Trump University was biased against him because of his heritage.
“I don’t know that Latino voters would very easily forget that he has called us Mexicans rapists and criminals,” said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. “All of that is something Latinos have been paying close attention to and it is not something that can be easily forgiven or forgotten.”
‘Scared’ farmhands
At Pence’s rally in Perry, the immigration divide was on vivid display. Flanked by products from local Georgia farms, Pence pronounced Trump “as genuine as a Georgia peach” to peals of applause from supporters waving “Farmers for Trump” signs.
But some Republicans are concerned his tough stance on immigration could lead to labor shortages on farms heavily reliant on immigrant labor.
“You can’t just round up 11 million people - you have to work through the system,” said Mike Carter, a retiree from Warner Robins. “We are lucky we have citizenship by birth. They don’t. They have to work through the system, but Trump, well, he speaks from emotion a lot of times.”
Mapi Molencamp, an immigrant from Colombia who works in a middle Georgia peach farm, said many farmers and laborers are “scared” of a backlash against undocumented workers. But she has no qualms with the hardline stance.
“It’s important to immigrate the right way. I don’t like people cheating or being sneaky. I came here and I want other people to do it the right way,” she said. “And that’s all.”
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