Hours after hard-line speech, Trump says 'there's softening' in his immigration plan

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump traveled to Mexico to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto and discuss his proposals for reforming the U.S. immigration system. After a campaign spent spouting forceful rhetoric against immigrants — and those from Mexico in particular — Trump appeared subdued next to Peña Nieto, and at a joint press conference he said that he felt a "tremendous feeling" toward Mexican-Americans. While both men "recognize the right of either country to build a physical" border wall, Trump said, the issue of who would pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — the central tenet of Trump's hard-line immigration policy — was not discussed.

Then, Trump hopped on a plane and flew back over that much-discussed border, landing in Arizona and apparently leaving the rhetoric of mutual respect behind him. "I am going to create a new special deportation task force," Trump said in a half-rally, half-policy speech appearance in Phoenix. He also reverted to his campaign promise to round up and deport 11 million illegal immigrants: "Day one, my first hour in office, those people are gone."

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.