A new ad that brutally exposes Donald Trump’s hypocrisy vis-à-vis illegal immigration did not come from any of his current opponents, but rather Our Principles PAC, an anti-Trump group led by former Mitt Romney aide Katie Packer.
The ad opens by asserting that the reason Trump is skipping Thursday’s GOP debate is “Trump can’t handle tough questions, like why he’d let millions of illegal immigrants stay in America and even supports a pathway to citizenship.” The ad then shows Trump addressing a Chicago audience last June, sounding as if he endorsed giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Trump lectured, “You have to give them a path and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that.”
The ad immediately segues to a recording of Trump telling Fox News on June 18, “How do you throw somebody out that’s lived in this country for twenty years? You can’t just throw everybody out.”
That sentiment, of course, reflected precisely the opposite of Trump’s attitude in his immigration plan, in which he ripped politicians, writing, “When politicians talk about ‘immigration reform’ they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders.” In October, Trump accused his then-chief rival, Ben Carson of being “for amnesty and I’m for a very strong border.”
The ad follows with a Trump tweet from August 29 in which he supported amnesty for illegal immigrants after a halt to illegal immigration.
After citing Trump’s huge hotels, the ad continues, “Why does Trump support amnesty? Maybe because Trump makes big money off illegal immigrants.” The ad then notes that “a federal court ruled that Trump’s company hired illegal immigrants to help the construction process for Trump Tower. He even paid a million dollar fine, and his new hotel in Washington?” The add quotes a news report stating, “The Washington Post interviewed about fifteen laborers at the D.C. hotel site, reporting that many reveal they entered the U.S. illegally.”
“You have to give them a path and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that.”
Donald Trump, supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants last June
The ad concludes: “Amnesty for illegal immigrants. Big money for himself. Can conservatives trust Donald Trump?”