Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that “It’s too early” to say whether he would provide a pathway to legal status for some illegal immigrants, although building a wall would be done “before I even think about that” in an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s “AC360” on CNN.
Trump was asked what he would do about illegal immigrants already in the United States, he stated, “I would do something very, very strong. Number one, I wouldn’t think about anything until I built a wall — impenetrable. There will be nobody coming into this country illegally. That’s number one. Number two, I would get the ones that are criminals, drug dealers, and the people that are forced in by Mexico, and you know exactly what I’m talking about, because Mexico is smarter and sharper and more cunning and frankly have much better negotiators than we have. And I would get the ones that are forced in by the country of Mexico, into our country, forced in, those people would get out, and they’d get out and get out fast. The rest I would be looking at very seriously.”
He was then asked, “would there be a pathway to citizenship?” Trump answered, “It’s too early for me to say. And when you say citizenship, the most we would be talking about was legal. But let me just tell you, before I even think about that, we have to build a — we have to build a wall. A real wall, not a wall that people walk through.”
Trump later added that he would put a price for building a border fence into any trade deals with Mexico.
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