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Donald Trump’s surprise trip to Mexico threatens to overshadow immigration speech

PHOENIX — In yet another strange twist in an already unusual campaign season, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will make a last-minute Wednesday visit to Mexico City, where he will meet privately with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

The sit-down, confirmed late Tuesday night by Trump and the Mexican leader in separate Twitter posts, will take place just hours before the GOP nominee is set to make what aides have billed as a pivotal immigration speech Wednesday evening in Phoenix.

The Trump campaign did not respond to repeated inquiries about the trip, which came at the request of Peña Nieto. According to a statement from his office, the Mexican president sent invitations late last week to meet with both Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee. Her campaign confirmed early Wednesday that she had received the invitation but offered no details on when or if she might accept.

Slideshow: U.S. Border agents pursue human and drug smugglers near Mexican border >>>

Trump’s abrupt decision to visit Mexico City, which took even some of his own staff and close advisers by surprise, takes him into a nation that he has repeatedly trashed on the campaign trail. Kicking off his unlikely bid for the presidency last year, Trump made immigration his pivotal issue, suggesting that many Mexican immigrants illegally entering the country are rapists and drug dealers.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump declared at his announcement speech in June 2015 and has repeated the sentiment many times since. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

One of Trump’s signature campaign issues has been his pledge to crack down on illegal immigration by building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, a structure he has insisted he would force Mexico to pay for. The proposal has earned scorn from all corners of the political spectrum, including from Pope Francis, who memorably criticized Trump over the issue during the GOP primary earlier this year.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Peña Nieto and other Mexican leaders have repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s plan, insisting Mexico would never pay for a border wall — even amid the GOP nominee’s threats to curb trade or issue financial sanctions. At the same time, Peña Nieto has been highly critical of what he has called Trump’s “anti-Mexican” rhetoric, even going so far as to compare it to the “strident” tone used by dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

“There have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of strident rhetoric have led to very ominous situations,” Pena Nieto told the Mexican newspaper Excélsior in an interview in March. “That’s how Mussolini got in, that’s how Hitler got in: They took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis.”

Word of Trump’s visit was greeted with disdain within Mexico, where the celebrity businessman turned politician has already been the subject of protests over the last year because of his heated rhetoric. But Peña Nieto, whose own approval ratings have plummeted to record lows in recent months, defended the meeting in a message on Twitter late Tuesday. He said he believed in “dialogue” to promote and protect Mexicans all over the world.

Perhaps by design, Trump’s abrupt detour threatens to overshadow his big immigration speech, which had been expected to clarify his increasingly murky stance on immigration reform. Though he has not backed down from his pledge to build a wall, Trump has recently appeared to waver in on some of his more hardline views, including a proposal to mass deport the estimated 11 million people already inside the U.S. illegally.

Over the last two weeks, Trump has publicly wavered back and forth about whether he would allow a form of legal status to some people who had illegally immigrated to the U.S. In a Fox News interview last week, Trump notably softened his view, telling host Sean Hannity there would be “no amnesty, but we will work with them.”

Donald Trump (Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP)
Donald Trump (Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP)

Among other things, Trump has suggested he’s considering a plan that would allow those in the U.S. illegally to stay if they pay back taxes — a proposal similar to those suggested by former GOP rivals Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, as well as President Obama. Asked for clarification, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and other aides have danced around the issue, insisting the GOP nominee plans to “enforce the law” but do so in a “humane” way.

The mixed signals come amid speculation that Trump is softening his views to make inroads with Latino and independent swing voters — two voting blocs he desperately needs to improve with as the election enters its final stretch. But the confusion has also raised alarm bells among key supporters, including Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who last week warned of “massive disappointment” among Trump’s base if he were to go “wishy-washy” on immigration.

Trump’s recent message, she told the Wall Street Journal, is “clearly not consistent with the stringent position and message that supporters have received all along.”

In a Monday interview with CNN, Donald Trump Jr., the candidate’s son, insisted his father was not “softening” his position on immigration. “He didn’t change his stance on anything,” the younger Trump said. “What he did — and what he’s done all along is he’s speaking with the people.”

But while he insisted his father had not changed his position on mass deportation, the younger Trump did offer some shift, suggesting his father wouldn’t act as quickly as he has sometimes suggested on the campaign trail. “You have to start with baby steps,” he said. “You have to let ICE do their job. You have to eliminate the sanctuary cities. You have to get rid of the criminals, certainly first and foremost, you have to secure the border.”

Trump aides have declined to say if the candidate will articulate any new positions in Wednesday’s speech, which will be delivered before what is expected to be a crowd of several thousand supporters in a state where his rallies have been known to be rowdy and often interrupted by protesters. He will appear in a state that is historically Republican territory but where recent polls show him only narrowly leading Clinton, who has begun to ramp up staff and advertising amid signs she could put the state in play this November.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to supporters. (Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP)
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to supporters. (Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP)

Many Republicans here have distanced themselves from Trump amid concerns he could hurt their attempts to appeal to increasing numbers of Hispanic voters in the state. That includes Sen. John McCain, who won his GOP primary Tuesday against a candidate who embraced Trump’s hardline views on immigration. But McCain now faces a tough general election fight. McCain, who has been publicly at odds with Trump, was invited to the GOP nominee’s speech. But when a reporter asked Tuesday if he planned to attend, the Arizona senator ignored the question, and aides declined to say.

Perhaps the biggest question beyond policy is what tone Trump will take in Wednesday’s speech. Under Conway’s influence, the real estate mogul has stuck to message over the last two weeks, relying almost exclusively on teleprompters to deliver more focused remarks with language that has been notably less antagonistic.

But amid handwringing by many supporters, it’s unclear if Trump will stick to his conciliatory tone on an issue that has been so pivotal to his candidacy. A Trump adviser told Yahoo News that Stephen Miller, a senior aide known for writing some of Trump’s more fiery speeches, is helping to draft the remarks, along with input from other members of the candidate’s inner circle.

Aides have also said Trump is getting input on the speech from outside advisers but have declined to say who they are. Among those who have advised him on immigration policy is Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a longtime Trump supporter in Arizona who backs the candidate’s hardline views on immigration. The controversial six-term sheriff, who won his primary bid for a seventh term on Tuesday, is currently under criminal investigation for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop racially profiling Latino drivers as part of his efforts to round up people living in the U.S. illegally.

Arpaio is scheduled to speak at the Trump rally Wednesday night, just ahead of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a close ally and increasingly frequent travel companion of Trump, who will introduce the GOP nominee to the stage.

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