It’s still undecided whether Donald Trump will continue to support forced deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants living in the US, his campaign manager said Sunday.
“To be determined,” said Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s new campaign manager, after repeated questioning by CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
Conway was responding to reports about what was said in a meeting Trump held on Saturday with a Hispanic advisory council. Sources in the room told BuzzFeed that Trump spoke about a “humane and efficient” way to work with undocumented immigrants in the country currently, which was characterized by BuzzFeed as a way to legalize some and let them stay.
That would stand in sharp contrast with a central theme of the Trump campaign since the beginning, a hardline position on immigration focused on removing people in the country illegally.
Conway disputed that Trump presented a reversal of his position in the meeting.
“So what Donald Trump said yesterday in that meeting … varied little from what he has said publicly,” Conway said. “What he supports is to make sure we enforce the law, that we are respectful of those Americans who are looking for jobs, and that we are fair and humane to those who live among us.”
Bash played a clip of Trump speaking about a deportation force last fall, saying it would be done “humanely,” repeatedly asking if that was still the position of the campaign or whether Trump was backing off.
That was when Conway responded: “To be determined.”