Trump Embraces Amnesty

The big political story this morning—and really this week—has been Donald Trump’s turnaround on immigration. By now there are so many pieces out there on this specific topic that there really isn’t much to add (one of the better articles can be found here). But I do want to note that this whole incident perfectly sums up what I said yesterday, which I wrote before this latest Trump immigration story reached the mainstream outlets.

Sure, Trump is still taking pains to say the new proposal really isn’t a flip-flop at all, and that it’s nothing like amnesty. But comparing what he was saying during the primary and what he says now, the shift in both tone and substance is notable. What a change from “they’re murderers, they’re rapists”, to “take a person that has been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and the family out, it's so tough.”

Not even Trump’s staunchest critics would have guessed that the man who made deportation his signature issue would be saying things like this: “No citizenship… [but] they pay back taxes…there’s no amnesty, but we work with them.” Critics said all along that his plan was merely touchback amnesty; now, he’s eliminated the touchback part altogether and gone full Gang of Eight. Regardless of how much he says “no amnesty”, what he is now proposing is exactly that. Pay back taxes, learn English, and then illegal immigrants are given legal status—it’s what we’ve heard for years, from the very politicians Trump claims to despise, and what his followers have accurately labeled as amnesty from the beginning. He might be able to shoot someone and not lose votes, but can he talk about immigration like Jeb Bush and not lose his base?

The only question now is whether those same followers will “define down” amnesty in response, i.e., “If Trump says it, it can’t be amnesty!” At this point, after everything else Trump supporters have done to make fools of themselves, I can’t say I would be surprised, although for the moment, a few—like Ann Coulter—still seem to have a shred of intellectual honesty left.