Trump Takes His Immigration Issues to Mexico and Hits a Home Run with President Peña Nieto

One of the few sane reports coming out of Washington recently was the news that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accepted the invitation by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to visit him in Mexico city. Trump made the trip Wednesday, just before his evening policy speech ion immigration in Arizona. ~~~~~~ Why is this a good idea? Take a look at the statistics. US Census Bureau data from the 2102 census analyzed by the Pew Research Center shows that a record 33.7 million Hispanics of Mexican origin resided in the United States in 2012 -- that is 10.5% of the US population. The Pew estimate includes 11.4 million immigrants born in Mexico and 22.3 million born in the US who self-identify as Hispanics of Mexican origin. About 60% of all Mexican Americans reside in the states of California and Texas. In 2012, the United States admitted 145,326 Mexican immigrants, and as of November 2015, over 1.34 million Mexicans were on the waiting list to immigrate to the United States through legal means. About 69% of the 11.3 million immigrants from Mexico aged 16 and older are working in the US. Pew Research reported in late 2015 that measuring migration flows between Mexico and the US is challenging because there are no official counts of how many Mexican immigrants are actually in the US at any one time, but the US government estimates that approximately 720,000 Mexicans cross the border each year. So, both President Peña Nieto and the next US President need to meet regularly and provide staff to keep up with the cross-border relationship. The Washington Post wrote in its Wednesday edition that when Trump declared his candidacy in 2015, he was seen by many in Mexico as insulting but not to be taken very seriously : "Mexican diplomats back then scoffed at the notion that Trump was a serious candidate or that the government was worried about his ascent.That’s all changed now. Many of Mexico’s government and business elite have grown skittish about the potential of a Trump presidency and the economic damage that his policies might inflict. The United States is Mexico’s most important trading partner. Earlier this year, Peña Nieto swapped out key diplomats, including the Mexican ambassador to the United States, to have a more aggressive presence advocating for the importance of a strong relationship between the two countries. Mexican officials were surprised to learn on Tuesday that Peña Nieto had extended an invitation to Trump." The WP wrote that one Mexican official said “Wow,” when asked to comment on the visit. Andrew Selee, a Mexico expert at the Wilson Center in Washington, told the Post : “This is an extraordinarily surprising, but welcome, development, whether it ends up happening or not. Mexico is a vital country for U.S. foreign policy and economic interests. The second destination for exports and the country of origin of a tenth of all Americans.” ~~~~~~ The Clinton campaign, in its usual holier-than-thou fashion, shrugged off Trump’s trip as a distraction from his policies : “What ultimately matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico, and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and deportation of millions,” wrote Jennifer Palmieri, a senior Clinton campaign adviser, in a statement. Another Clinton campaign official, who requested anonymity to talk to the Post, confirmed that Clinton received a letter requesting an in-person meeting with the Mexican leader. Clinton has not yet accepted : “Secretary Clinton last met with President Peña Nieto in Mexico in 2014 and our campaign is in a regular dialogue with the Mexican government officials. She looks forward to talking with President Peña Nieto again at the appropriate time.” We might add that Hillary, the candidate who says she has the Hispanic vote in the bag, seems to be treating Mexico's president in a rather offhand manner. Perhaps she feels she can take for granted her loyal Hispanic voters, in much the same way she feels she can take for granted her loyal Africqn American voters. Below, we will see that her recent polls may be signaling that her in-the-bag approach to her presidential campaign is wearing thin. ~~~~~~ Trump is returning from Mexico to go directly to the Phoenix Convention Center to outline his plan for dealing with the more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. On Saturday, Trump told supporters in Iowa that "on day one, I'm going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country." His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on Bloomberg TV that Trump's proposals would include building a wall on the US-Mexico border, ending sanctuary cities and offering no amnesty for immigrants who are in the US illegally. Trump's frequent assurance that Mexico will pay for a border wall with the US is explained on his website : "It's an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year." Hhis plan calls for blocking remittances to Mexico from Mexicans in the US if the Mexican government does not pay. Peña Nieto several months ago told CNN that Mexico will not put up the cash : "There is no way that Mexico can pay [for] a wall like that." But, Trump believes he has the leverage needed to broker a deal with Mexico : "The United States has borne the extraordinary daily cost of this criminal activity, including the cost of trials and incarcerations. Not to mention the even greater human cost. We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage." ~~~~~~ Late Tuesday, Trump and President Peña Nieto confirmed on Twitter that they will meet Wednesday. Trump wrote : “I have accepted the invitation of President Enrique Peña Nieto, of Mexico, and look very much forward to meeting him tomorrow.” Soon afterward, Peña Nieto’s office wrote that “El Señor” Donald Trump has accepted the invitation and will meet privately on Wednesday with President Peña Nieto, who later tweeted that he believes in dialogue in order to “promote the interests of Mexico in the world and, principally, to protect Mexicans wherever they are.” When Trump representatives contacted the US Embassy in Mexico. They were told privately by officials that it would be logistically difficult for Trump to visit. But Trump's representatives insisted that Trump would not delay his plans, a source told the Post, which reported : "Overseas visits by senior US officials normally require weeks of intricate planning on both sides. When more security is required, such trips become even more complicated. Security staffs traveling with the visitor are usually beefed up. While Mexico is not considered a hostile place, the crime level is high, and Trump, should he appear in public, would require significant protection." The invitation and visit by Trump was expected to cause a backlash in Mexico City, where Trump is widely disliked. Mexicans have bashed Trump piñatas, burned him in effigy during public street parties and staged plays about him as a comic villain, but very few demonstrators were seen on CNN videos. Several Mexican politicians strongly criticized the meeting. Miguel Barbosa, an opposition senator with the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, tweeted about Trump : “Your presence in Mexico is not welcome. Get out! You come to take a photo with those you’ve offended.” Barbosa qnd other politicians who oppose Peña Nieto have called the invitation a political error. A Mexican presidential hopeful with the right-wing National Action Party, Margarita Zavala, tweeted that even though Trump was invited to Mexico, he was not welcome. And, leading the anti-Trump charge is former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who tweeted : “There is no turning back, Trump, your offenses towards Mexicans, Moslems and more, have led you to the pit where you are today. Goodbye, Trump!...Now you should quit out of dignity for yourself, get back to your ‘business.’” Fox reiterated his criticism of the Republican presidential nominee during a CNN interview Wednesday : "He is not welcome in Mexico. President [Enrique] Peña [Nieto] is taking an enormous political risk. How can you trust a guy like this?" ~~~~~~ What did the two men talk about? Mike Pence said running mate Donald Trump would reaffirm his commitment to a border wall with Mexico in his meeting with President Peña Nieto : “I’m very confident my running mate will be very clear with [Mexican] President [Enrique] Peña Nieto about our priority of securing the border, building a wall....making it clear that we are going to have a new administration that deals with and confronts not only illegal immigration but the flood of drugs and the heartbreak of human trafficking coming across our borders.” Pence also told CNN that Trump would remain steadfast in his positions while seeking common ground with Peña Nieto : “To know Donald Trump is to know not your standard-issue politician, but really a business leader that knows you’ve first got to sit down with people. You’ve got to look them in the eye, tell them where you stand and they can express their positions. That’s where real negotiations can begin. I really expect the meeting today is just the beginning of a conversation.” ~~~~~~ Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” : “It’s a decisive, presidential move. I think you’ll see a very presidential Donald Trump today meeting with the president of Mexico. He wants to establish a conversation with a neighboring country, a leader. And also to discuss the common problems and challenges that our countries face.” Conway cited Trump and Pence's visit to Louisiana and his trip to Mexico as examples of the GOP presidential team being the leaders in the race. Conway said Hillary Clinton is not keeping up with Trump : “I feel like she keeps following the leader. We’re the leader here. People are in need in Louisiana, we’re right there. The president of Mexico invites us, we accept his invitation....I’m sorry that [former] Secretary Hillary Clinton is not going and has not accepted the invitation.” Conway added Trump would have a “productive conversation” with Mexican leadership on issues including illegal immigration, trade policy and drugs, in which Trump has said illegal immigrants from Mexico have a key role because of their drug trafficking and violent crime. ~~~~~~ Trump must be doing something right -- his polls show he is rapidly catching up to Hillary Clinton -- and the rising polls are certainly greatly influenced by Trump's recent detailed explanations about his immigration policy and plans. TheHill, not a partisan Trump website news outlet, wrote Tuesday that he's gaining ground on Hillary Clinton in the polls, leaving her with a smaller lead going into the crucial month of September. Clinton had her biggest margin on August 9, with a 7.6% lead over Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. At the time, she was consistently reaching 50% support. But, TheHill says Clinton’s lead has shrunk to 4.3% in the RealClearPolitics national average, and she’s fallen short of the 50% mark in the last six national polls, settling in the mid-40% range. Trump's polling deficit is small enough to overcome as he enters the post-Labor Day sprint. TheHill says Clinton is being "dragged down by awful favorability ratings, which have prevented her from running away with the race." Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray told TheHill : “It’s not in the bag for her yet.” A NBC News-Survey Monkey poll released Tuesday found Clinton’s lead falling from 6 points earlier this month to 4 points. In that survey, Trump reduced Clinton’s lead among independents by half, from 8 points to 4 points. Trump has also closed the gap in Reuters-Ipsos and Monmouth polls released this week, although he still trails by 3 points and 7 points, respectively. Pollsters told The Hill that Clinton’s polling bounced after her party's national convention, but opportunities exist for Trump to win over Republican holdouts and independents. GOP pollster David Winston says : “They’re both hitting ceilings of support because of their hugely negative favorability ratings. The challenge is figuring out how to get people who don’t like them at all to get out and vote for them.” One task for Trump is shoring up votes in his own party. Clinton routinely receives support from more than 80% of Democrats polled, but the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey found Trump taking 73% support from likely Republican voters. Romney got 93% GOP support in 2012 and still lost by almost 4% nationally. ~~~~~~ In July 2015, Newsmax published an article titled "16 Reasons Donald Trump Is Not Wrong on Immigration," by Jim Meyers. You can google it. Much of it is still valid today. Here are the highlights : (1) The border is extremely porous : The UN reported that 97% of the illegal immigrants who enter the US clandestinely do so across the nearly 2,000-mile Mexican border, but only 20% of those who cross illegally are caught. (2) Illegal immigrants do bring crime : Of the 61,529 criminal cases initiated by federal prosecutors in 2013, more than 40% were filed in court districts neighboring the border, with 22% drug-related, 19.7% violent crimes, and 10.2% white-collar offenses. (3) Immigrants are killing Americans : According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 57% of the 76 fugitive murderers wanted by the FBI in 2009 were foreign-born. The Center also disclosed that in Maricopa County in Arizona, 22% of felons are illegal immigrants. (4) Illegal immigrants pose a danger on the roads : About 4.5 million illegal aliens in the US drive on a regular basis, many without licenses or insurance or even the ability to read road signs written in English, The New York Times reported. In Arizona, 63% of cited drivers have no license, no insurance, and no registration for the vehicle, and 97% of them are illegal aliens. Of the 188,380 deportations of illegal aliens in one recent year, 23% had committed criminal traffic offenses, primarily driving under the influence. Representative Steve King of Iowa has estimated that illegal alien drunk drivers kill 13 Americans every day. (5) Statistics back up Trump's charge that illegals bring drugs: In Pinal County, Ariz., about 70 miles from the Mexican border, Sheriff Paul Babeu said marijuana seizures went from about 19,000 pounds in 2008 to more than 45,500 pounds in 2010. Babeu observed : "The Mexican drug cartels have almost toppled the Mexican government and they are crossing into Arizona at will. Pinal County has seen mass murders, execution-style slayings, sexual assaults, kidnappings, shootings, armed robberies, burglaries, and more — all tied to illegal immigration." (6) Many immigrants entering the country illegally have a criminal record in the US : In 2010, the Border Patrol reported that 212,000 illegals were caught in the Tucson, Arizona., sector alone, and as many as 30 percent of them already had a criminal record in the US. Many illegal alien convicts have been arrested multiple times: A Government Accountability Office study of 55,000 illegal aliens found that they were arrested at least 459,614 times, averaging about eight arrests per alien. About one-quarter of them had 11 or more arrests. (7) Deportation of illegal immigrants doesn't keep them out of the US : Due to the wide-open Mexican border, the number of people prosecuted for coming into the country illegally after being deported has increased by 175% since 2005, according to a report cited by the Constitution Party website. The illegal alien recently accused of randomly murdering a woman in San Francisco had previously been deported five times.(8) The Mexican border is being used by illegals from other countries : Arrests by the Border Patrol of illegals from countries other than Mexico, particularly from Central America, increased from 59,000 in 2010 to 99,000 in 2012. (9) Immigrants are filling U.S. jails: One quarter of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals, as are 40% of inmates in Arizona and 48% in New Mexico. And 75% of those on the most wanted criminals list in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Albuquerque are illegal aliens. (10) Illegals do include "rapists," as Trump charged : Among many examples, an undocumented alien was arrested in Baltimore for raping a 9-year-old girl. In Austin, Texas, police arrested two Mexican nationals who allegedly participated in the gang rape of a 13-year girl. As many as 13 men took part, and some filmed the crime on their cell phones. Early in 2105, an illegal alien from Mexico admitted in court that he raped a 12-year-old girl. (11) Ordinary Americans agree with Trump : According to Rasmussen Reports, 63% of Americans want the US to gain control of the border. Relatives of victims know that Trump is right : The mother of a teenager who was murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, praised Trump for "trying to do something about a failed immigration system." Even wealthy Mexicans agree with Trump : Reuben Navarette Jr. wrote in The Daily Beast that Mexico's elite, despite displaying "outrage" at Trump's comments, often say the same things as Trump privately. ~~~~~~ Dear readers, some may be thinking, these are the same "right wing statistics" used against African Americans. But, if you read yesterday's blog, you saw similar criminal situations relating to migrants described in Germany. Most EU countries who have followed German Chancellor Merkel's open border migrant policy are seeing similar statistics -- and they are compiled by leftist governments because most EU governments are leftist. But, some EU countries are now limiting migrant entries significantly and showing reduced crime rates and more empty jail cells as a result. The Pew Research Center estimates that there are nearly 12 million illegal aliens in the US -- the key word is "estimate." As Donald Trump forced CNN's Anderson Cooper to admit last week, illegal immigration is : "coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over Latin America, and it's coming probably from the Middle East. But we don't know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don't know what's happening. And it's got to stop." Mexico was the logical first stop on Trump's plans to eliminate illegal immigration, deport illegal immigrants who are criminals, and close the porous border between the US and Mexico. The joint news conference after their historic hour-long meeting found both Trump and Peña Nieto statesmanlike and polite. Trump called for an end to the "humanitarian disaster" of illegal immigration : "This is a humanitarian disaster -- the dangerous treks, the abuse by gangs and cartels and the extreme physical dangers -- and it must be solved." He added that neither country can "win" when the border is filled with "human smugglers and drug traffickers," or when illegal weapons and cash flow into Mexico from the north while immigrants come into America from the south. Trump outlined five crucial areas of agreement between the two nations -- ending illegal immigration, securing the border, dismantling drug cartels and the flow of illicit guns and money between the border, improving NAFTA, and preserving manufacturing wealth in the hemisphere. During a brief question-and-answer session with the press, Trump confirmed that he spoke with Peña Nieto about his proposal to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Asked whether they discussed Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for the wall, Trump replied, “We didn’t discuss that," framing the meeting as "preliminary." He struck a more conciliatory tone as he stood alongside Peña Nieto, lauding the "great honor" of the invitation by the Mexican president and noting his "tremendous feelings for Mexican-Americans." And Trump reached out to shake hands with Peña Nieto at the conclusion of the remarks. CNN's analysts were left almost speechless -- calling the meeting an obvious successful first step. Howard Wolfson, a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, praised Trump for his speech in Mexico alongside Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. Wolfson, who worked as Clinton's communications director in 2008, tweeted following the joint press conference that Trump's address was a "home run" : "If you believe Trump needed to pivot, moderate and look more Presidential, that event was a home run." As we would expect, earlier Wednesday, Clinton slammed Trump's "photo-op" visit as Trump's attempt to make up for a year's worth of insults : "You don’t build a coalition by insulting our friends or acting like a loose cannon. You do it by doing the slow hard work of building relationships. You do it by doing the slow hard work of building relationships. That was my job every day as your secretary of State. It’s more than a photo-op...and it certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again. That’s not how it works.” Of course, Hillary knows "how it works" if she is selling favors, but she has it all wrong about how getting things done should work -- Trump will change diplomacy from the snails-pace torture of rounds of meetings in diplomacy-speak about how to organize the next round of meetings -- Hillary did that for four years and did nothing but destroy Libya, alienate Russia, kick Israel and Egypt in the shins, and sell clandestine arms to Syrians, which Syrians we don't yet know. Trump's cut-to-the-core-issue approach will actually result in plain-language progress. Refreshing, I would say. Just to hear each man say that they share democratic values and put their citizens' interests first is far above Hillary's Progressive-speak . And to hear Donald Trump say "I love America and will protect her people" is absolutely heartwarming after eight years of America-baiting by President Obama. Mr. Trump, we are with you all the way on this critical issue.