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Donald Trump’s Extreme Anti-Immigrant Plans Are Not Changing

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Donald Trump’s immigration plan is crystal clear. If elected, he will create a deportation force that will remove 11 million undocumented immigrants and their families in 18 months, ban Muslim immigrants from entering the United States, build a wall along the entire Mexico border, and make Mexico pay for it.

At numerous points in this election cycle, members of the media and moderate-Republicans have claimed that Donald Trump will flip-flop on his immigration plan. The latest claim came Saturday after Trump met with Hispanic Republicans in Florida.

Adrian Carrasquillo, of Buzzfeed, reported over the weekend that Donald Trump was considering reversing course on immigration, or at least was open to hearing ideas from a Hispanic advisory committee about how he could really devise a “humane” and “effective” approach to undocumented immigrants.

The Trump campaign and members of the racist alt-right media outlets were quick to correct the record and state that Trump is not making any sort of “pivot” on immigration.

On Monday morning, Trump himself also weighed in saying that he was planning no such direction for his campaign. Calling into Fox and Friends, Trump said, “I’m not flip-flopping. We want to come up with a really fair, but firm answer.”

So what’s Trump up to? Is he lying to the white supremacists who have fueled his campaign since the beginning?  Or, is he muddying the waters in hopes of attracting the few remaining Hispanics who would even consider supporting his campaign?

As Paul Waldman wrote for the Washington Post today, we can’t figure out Trump’s strategy because he doesn’t have one. And he never will.

Waldman writes:

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some part of Trump himself that understands that in order to win, he’d have to do something radically different from what brought him so much success in the primaries. But he doesn’t have it in him, and the chaotic mess that is his campaign can’t force him to alter course — at least not for more than a moment, before he goes right back to being himself.”

And as Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice said on MSNBC this morning, if there’s shift from the Trump campaign it will be minor, only rhetorical, and have no impact on the campaign. The cake is baked.

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