Donald Trump denies ‘flip-flopping’ on immigration

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has rubbished a charge that he is "flip-flopping" on immigration, despite the billionaire and his campaign manager apparently suggesting he might be willing to consider softening his hardline positions. His denial came two days after the New York property developer met his newly announced Hispanic advisory council at Trump Tower, his Manhattan headquarters, where he suggested he wanted to devise a "humane and efficient" way of dealing with the estimated 11 million migrants living in the US illegally.

The businessman’s campaign team dismissed a report on news website Buzzfeed interpreting Mr Trump’s comments at the meeting on Saturday as a policy shift to being open to legalisation for “undocumented” immigrants.

Back down

Mr Trump’s newly appointed campaign manager

Kellyanne Conway

appeared to suggest on CNN on Sunday that the Republican nominee may be willing to back down on one of his most radical immigration proposals.

“To be determined,” said Ms Conway in response to repeated questioning on the show about whether Mr Trump would continue to support the forced deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, including thousands of Irish, as he has proposed.

The businessman himself scotched speculation, declaring: “I’m not flip-flopping,” on Fox News on Monday.

“We have to be very firm. We have to be very, very strong when people come in illegally.

"We have a lot of people that want to come in through the legal process and it's not fair for them. And we're working with a lot of people in the Hispanic community to try and come up with an answer." The Trump campaign has been touting a major speech he is due to deliver on immigration in Colorado, a battleground state, on Thursday.

Deportation force

In November 2015 Mr Trump said that he would use a “deportation force” to send illegal immigrants back to their home countries “humanely.”

Mr Trump has alienated many Hispanics by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and "criminals" and with plans to deport migrants and build a wall at the border with Mexico.

A Fox News Latino poll published last week found that 66 per cent of registered Hispanic voters would back Mrs Clinton in the November 8th election compared with only 20 per cent for Mr Trump. This compares with 27 per cent for Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, and 31 per cent for John McCain four years earlier.

Hispanics, a growing political force in the US, are a critical electoral bloc for presidential candidates. They are expected to account for 12 per cent of voters this year.

If Mr Trump were to replicate Mr Romney’s 17 per cent support among non-white voters in the 2012 election, it is estimated that he would need to win 65 per cent of the white vote.