As 2018 kicks off, the issue of Immigration Reform remains an unanswered question in Washington. For Donald Trump, he's positioning himself in an attack on the Democrats.
Trump on immigration
When Donald Trump announced that he was running for president, his speech gained the most attention due to his comments about immigration reform. The former host of "The Apprentice" referred to illegal immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and "murderers," resulting in instant backlash from the majority of the mainstream media. Over the course of his entire campaign, and since his inauguration last January, Trump has taken a hard-line on how to move forward with immigration reform, including the possibility of mass deportation and the construction of a Mexican-funded border wall.
The Republican Party as a whole has been vocal in their views on immigration, with most pushing to at least tighten border security, eliminate funding for sanctuary cities, and to allow ICE the ability to deport more undocumented Americans than they have in recent years. One aspect of immigration that is being focused on now is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) which allows DREAMers to stay in the country. Trump commented on this issue during a tweet on January 2.
Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start “falling in love” with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018
Taking to Twitter on Thursday morning, Donald Trump highlighted the issue of immigration and DACA by predicting that Hispanics would shift their support from the Democratic Party over to the Republican Party.
"Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics," Trump tweeted.
Bipartisan DACA talks set to commence with White House https://t.co/Mut2PxXPak pic.twitter.com/uSdRuKyGNq
— POLITICO (@politico) January 2, 2018
"DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems," Donald Trump wrote, before adding, "will start 'falling in love' with Republicans and their President!" "We are about RESULTS," he concluded.
Trump has made it clear in the past that in order for DACA to be extended and included in his plans for immigration reform, the Democrats would have to concede on ending chain migration and allow for the building of his border wall between the United States and Mexico.
Next up
While immigration is a hot topic, it's unknown if the Republicans and Democrats will be able to find common ground in order to make progress on the issue.
Though the commander in chief believes that he will be able to garner support from Hispanics, recent polling shows otherwise as his general approval rating has dropped under 35 percent after his first year in the White House.
