Trump and Deportations

A few points on the best way to respond to questions about "deporting 11 million" that Trump flubbed so badly recently:

First, never indicate that anyone will definitely be legalized. It disheartens supporters and allows the enemy to start tearing at the weakness.

Second, always shift the discussion to the non-sympathetic cases - not just the criminals, but those who are on welfare or otherwise are a detriment to our society. Do not get suckered into talking about people whom your emotions will tell you we have to let stay, but about those whom most people will demand be deported. However, never imply that you are limiting deportations only to the cases that you mention.

Third, emphasize the logic of attrition through enforcement - point out that seriously enforcing employment laws will cause many illegal aliens to leave; seriously enforcing welfare restrictions will do the same. Even deportations will have a multiplier effect, because once we are serious about deportations, a significant number will leave on their own. Emphasizing this will blunt the impact of the "you can't round up 11 million people" line. But do not hint at it - specifically note that enforcing the laws will cause many to leave without being deported.

Fourth, emphasize the deportation of recent visa overstayers - make the point that a large portion of illegal aliens did not come here illegally, but rather stayed here illegally. Talk about deporting those people, and associate the idea of a deportation force with a group of people who coordinate such removals.

Fifth, shift the discussion about the sympathetic cases to the future. "Listen, perhaps there are some cases of people who are beneficial to the country and who have been here a long time, and we can work with those people - but before we do any of that, we need to get a handle on the people who are not beneficial to this country - and there are a lot more of those than the media would have you believe. Before we determine what to do with these sympathetic cases, we must first remove the non-sympathetic ones - violent criminals first, but then lesser criminals, people who are receiving government benefits - the idea that the vast majority of illegal aliens are good guys and we only need to remove a few bad apples - there are lots of bad apples. But we'll get rid of them first; then we can see whether or not anyone who is left gets to stay."

That is all.

Trump Should Say Immigration is About Americans & Mexicans versus Carlos Slim

The best way for Trump to gain Latino votes, and to alter the impression that people have of him that he is mean to immigrants is for him to reframe the issue so that he will pursue policies that will help the illegal aliens to do better in their home countries.

He can reframe the issue as working class Americans and Mexicans versus rich plutocrats on both sides of the border who use immigration policy for exploitation. Carlos Slim is the obvious biggest target by far. Essentially, Trump can say that in addition to protecting our border, he will push for anti-monopoly reforms in Mexico to end the economy-sapping telecom gouging by Carlos Slim, and to increase penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegals.

By far, the most important element is the first - he ought to declare that in any renegotiation of NAFTA, he will insist that Mexico pass certain reforms. In general, trade deals will be used as a bargaining chip with any country sending us large numbers of immigrants. The primary focus of the speech should be on he fact that he is not looking to help U.S. workers by hurting non-U.S. workers, but to help them by stopping the massive profiteering of corrupt plutocrats. His reforms would make both average Americans and average Mexicans richer - it's the corrupt plutocrats who would lose out.

Also, it would make it easier to talk about being humane to illegal aliens - he could simply say something like "by the time my policies are done, life will be so good in their home countries they will beg to be deported!" The key is to make it seem that America First will benefit everyone else as well, so it will be harder to portray as selfish.

As a bonus, he could continually lambaste the New York Times as nothing more than a puppet of Carlos Slim, and every bad article about him he could respond with "of course, the N.Y. Times hates me, it's owned by a bad guy I am trying to stop from exploiting his people." Also, he should start calling it the Carlos Slim Times.

That is all.