Trump is ‘Harmful’ on Amnesty

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Real estate tycoon Donald Trump virtually singlehandedly put immigration at the top of the Republican presidential debate, but a hardline immigration critic gives him mediocre marks.

NumbersUSA, which favors strong enforcement of existing immigration law, further action to crack down on illegal immigration, as well as reduced levels of legal immigration, cut its rating of Trump on Tuesday in response to comments suggesting he would make a distinction between criminals and other illegal immigrants.

The Virginia-based group’s current grade for Trump is a C. In contrast, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania gets an A, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gets a B. Both men are among Trump’s rivals of the 2016 GOP nomination.

“It was a strange turn of events for Trump who dominated the news all week in his tenacious attempts to stand up for the crime victims of illegal immigration, igniting a national debate about ‘sanctuary cities’ that led to the U.S. House passing a bill to defund such local governments,” NumbersUSA founder Roy Beck wrote Tuesday on the group’s website. “However, he still has not weighed in on what he would do about interior enforcement policies other than sanctuary cities.”

The group labels Trump “harmful” on amnesty and “unhelpful” on reducing illegal immigration.

The group labels Trump “harmful” on amnesty and “unhelpful” on reducing illegal immigration.

Trump on Tuesday sought to expand on comments he made to his recent trip to the U.S.-Mexican-border in Arizona on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” He said the “drugs come in and the money goes out,” vowing that before construction even begins on his promised wall, he will deport criminals and gang members who are in the country illegally.

“We are getting the bad people out of the country really, really fast,” he said.

Pressed by Ingraham about his call for making legal immigration faster and easier, Trump reiterated support for that position.

“I’m a believer in the merit system, OK, and I think we need to have great people come into this country,” he said. “And we can no longer afford to have people just running across borders and say, ‘Congratulations, you’re in our country.'”

Trump added that the United States is losing with its current immigration policies.

“Some of those people are people that other countries didn’t want, where they send them into the United States because we’re run by stupid people and we take care of them,” he said. “We have a lot of work to get the bad ones out of our country. That’s No. 1.”