Trump laid out a plan for immigration, and did the GOP a huge favor. From what I gather, Trump’s is for deportation of all illegals and building a secure border. This is far more vigorous than any GOPer has proposed and, indeed, it is probably a plan which would never get majority support. It is also makes things a bit more difficult for the GOP – but at the same time it opens up a gigantic opportunity.

First off, the Democrats love it – not the plan, but that Trump said it as a Republican. They desperately need a divisive, racial issue which can be used to juice up the base for Hillary in 2016. Regardless of what happens to Trump, Democrats will paint the Trump position as the GOP position – and as the Democrats will put it, the GOP plan is cruel deportation. No amount of mealy-mouthed GOP claims to the contrary will matter because, quite simply, the MSM won’t sufficiently report them…but you can bet that they’ll drive this into the ground…it’ll be endless “REPUBLICAN Donald Trump wants to DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS” on replay for days as the MSM drives the Narrative into the public mind. The bottom line is that the Democrats and their MSM lapdogs will try to convince LIVs that the GOP hates Latinos.

Will it work? Of course it will. All it took was one badly answered question and the GOP was hammered successfully with “war on women” twaddle for two election cycles. LIV are LIV for a reason – they don’t know anything other than what the MSM tells them. And the MSM will tell them about Trump and the mean, horrid, racist, cruel Republicans.

Secondly, though, it does open up the field of debate – any GOPer can now be a relative moderate on immigration but still be tough on illegal immigration: he or she just needs to step an inch to the left of Trump. We can condemn both extremes of immigration – mass deportation and open borders, while at the same time calling for real immigration reform which will actually give the United States an immigration policy based upon rational ideas. LIV who have been told that the GOP is a horrid, racist bunch of anti-Latino bigots will eventually get to hear the actual GOP nominee speak about it…and when he or she lays out a rational plan for immigration reform, and then challenges Hillary on the Democrats’ open border nonsense, LIV will have their eyes opened (well, we hope – as long as there isn’t some Kardashian news on the debate nights).

My ideas on immigration start with strict border security – both as a matter of national defense and as an act of mercy towards the illegals: our Progressives will downright refuse to see it, but open borders in the United States merely means that criminal gangs control entry into our nation, and they treat the illegals extremely badly. I’d like to see a modification of birthright citizenship, but I believe any change here would require a Constitutional amendment (I would amend it to say, “any person born to at least one U.S. citizen is a natural born citizen of the United States”, in order to finally clear up forever the entire issue). I’d like to have some sort of guest-worker program. I’d slap a 90% tax on remittances from people in the United States to people in foreign countries (I believe this would, of itself, cause several million illegals to just go back home – they are only here to send money back home and once we stop that, there’s no reason for them to be here), though I’d offer no tax penalty to a guest-worker who takes his savings with him when he leaves (in other words, while he’s working legally as a guest-worker let’s say he saves $10,000.00…if he tries to wire that home, we take $9,000.00…but if he goes home with it, no penalty; massive incentive to leave when your legal time is up). I would explicitly have a program for eventual citizenship for those illegals here for, say, 5 years or longer, who have committed no crimes while inside the United States, who have had children while living in the United States, and who have not sent more than 10% of their gross income back home since arriving in the United States (in other words, I’m getting a path to citizenship for those illegals who’s actions indicate a desire to settle permanently in the United States and become Americans). I believe that any GOPer can take all or part of these ideas and craft an immigration plan which would command majority support.

One thing for certain, Trump has torn the lid off our politically correct political process. Whether this will harm or help the conservative cause long-term remains to be seen. But now that Trump has lanced the boil, it is time for any GOPer who really wants to be President to step up, steal Trump’s thunder and come up with plans which walk the actual middle line between the extremes. We’ll see if anyone does it.