Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. Hispanic Federation continues to be deeply troubled by Mr. Trump’s vitriolic attacks on immigrants and his punitive and unrealistic proposals to address our nation’s broken immigration system. We are also troubled by Mr. Trump’s comments regarding civil rights and equality in our nation. Just yesterday, he doubled down on his political grandstanding by saying that within the first 100 days of his administration that the wall with Mexico would be designed and the immigration ban on Muslims would be in place. If Mr. Trump wishes to be taken seriously by Latino and other voters, he must reconsider these views and present serious policy proposals.
Mr. Trump has made immigration one of the touchstones of his presidential campaign. He has pledged to “build a wall” along the border between the United States and Mexico and has promised to launch a massive deportation operation targeting the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country. In addition, Mr. Trump has pledged to revoke President Obama’s recent Executive Orders regarding DACA and DAPA. These policies are not only unworkable and costly, they are also profoundly inconsistent with American values. It is time for Mr. Trump to abandon these divisive campaign talking points and present the American people with a serious plan for fixing our immigration system that keeps families together, offers hardworking undocumented residents a pathway to citizenship, and strengthens America’s economy.
Hispanic Federation is further troubled by Mr. Trump’s statements during the primary campaign regarding civil rights for all Americans. His opposition to marriage equality, his call for unlimited surveillance of Americans based on their religious background, and his unwillingness to examine abuses within our criminal justice system betray a deep ambivalence about the bedrock American principle of equality before the law.
It is clear that Mr. Trump’s success this primary season is a reflection of his skills as a campaigner. It is also a product of the anxiety and dissatisfaction many voters feel about the economic, social and political issues that we confront as a nation. Mr. Trump has presented himself as a man defined by his willingness to lead. Yet, true leadership isn’t about bombastic declarations and leveling insults at people or entire communities. True leaders inspire us, as Abraham Lincoln once noted, to be guided “by the better angels of our nature.”