While this is indeed news or a sort, it seems more a case of Trump shamelessly bullshitting a roomful of his few Hispanic backers than any so-called "reversal" of policy.
In a meeting with his newly announced Hispanic advisory council, Donald Trump suggested he is interested in figuring out a “humane and efficient” manner to deal with immigrants in the country illegally, according to three sources, while stressing that it will still be in line with the border security-focused approach that has invited intense opposition from Latinos and immigrants since he launched his campaign.
“He said people who are here is the toughest part of the immigration debate, that it must be something that respects border security but deals with this in a humane and efficient manner,” said Jacob Monty, a Houston-based immigration lawyer who sat in Trump Tower with other Latino supporters and Trump.
Yeaaahhhhnno. Keep in mind that Donald Trump believes "humane and efficient" to be forming "commissions" to investigate Muslim Americans, barring immigrants wholesale from troublesome regions, and torturing the families of suspected terrorists if we think doing so would extract useful information. While we have no doubt Trump believes he will be disposing of 11 million of the people he just one day ago again vowed to prevent from taking our "jobs" in a "humane and efficient" fashion, while making certain they cannot come back because we'll be building a "big, beautiful" humane and efficient wall along the entirety of the southern-but-not-northern border, you'd have to be a special kind of stupid to presume your idea of "humane and efficient" and Donald J. Trump's idea of "humane and efficient" turn out to be the same thing.
Never, ever trust someone who say they're going to be dealing with millions of people in an ethnically-defined underclass in a "humane and efficient" manner. Just ... don't.
Importantly, Trump did not explicitly use the word “legalization,” but people in the room feel it is the direction the campaign is going.
I see. So a Trump Tower office full of Donald Trump's invited top Hispanic supporters believe that any minute now, Donald Trump will be headed in the general direction of "legalization". The same Donald Trump who has made the demonization of immigrants, documented or not, "radicalized" or not, refugees or not, the cornerstone of his campaign rhetoric since he first descended his gilded escalator to share his thoughts on Mexican "rapists" with the rest of us. The Donald Trump who just hired the architect of the “alt-right” racist cesspool known as Brietbart to guide his campaign. The Donald Trump whose very first general election television ad, released this very week, suggested freight trains full of undocumented immigrants were crossing our border right now, planning mischief. That guy.
He'll be pivoting towards "legalization" of undocumented immigrants any day now.
Ooooh, I've got a great idea. A truly wonderful, fantastic, devious idea: Let's believe him. That's right, all you Donald Trump supporters out there, all you racists and xenophobes and people who see invisible immigrants under your beds at night, all you Republicans who tossed Republicans like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio out of the race with extreme prejudice for even daring to once suppose that maybe we ought to be coming to some arrangement other than blanket deportations for every last man, woman and child who could not show their paperwork; Donald Trump just told a room full of Hispanic supporters that he's moving in the direction of “legalization” for undocumented immigrants! He's "pivoting!"
Let's watch just how many Trump surrogates come on the television between now and Monday to swat this one down like it was a flaming bee and they were soaked in gasoline. Let’s all watch.
