Why don't they just apply for citizenship?
When Donald Trump met with DREAM activists two years ago in his Penthouse office atop the Tump Tower, he was trying to connect the dots between his beauty pageants and the Hispanic Heritage Awards. The Dreamers were a surprise addition to the meeting—invited by an attendee to talk to Trump about their experience. The Donald was gracious, if characteristically oblivious, as the Dreamers told their stories,
reports Adrian Carrasquillo.
Trump alternated between making no sense and broad ignorance on the issue, according to Gaby Pacheco, a prominent national activist and the third DREAMer in the meeting.
“Don’t you think someone in a wheelchair is more deserving than you all?” Trump said to silence.
But he also kept asking, “Can’t you just become a citizen if you want to?” No, we can’t, the activists said, there’s no process for that. Trump was reflective, the activists said.
“You know, the truth is I have a lot of illegals working for me in Miami,” he told them, using the term for undocumented immigrants those in the meeting found offensive. “You know in Miami, my golf course is tended by all these Hispanics — if it wasn’t for them my lawn wouldn’t be the lawn it is, it’s the best lawn,” Pacheco recalled Trump saying.
Oh goodness. Nothing like Trump reaching out to connect with "all these Hispanics." But the activists looked past it—they were there to win his support for immigration reform. When they finally made the ask, he responded, "You've convinced me." Case closed. Then he took them down to the store in his hotel and let them each pick out a free item or two.
“Everything said, ‘Made in China,’” Pacheco said.
Of course it did.
Moral of the story: Trump is a master of the moment, unburdened by prior commitments, who possesses the easy ignorance of a manchild born into too much money.