Donald Trump's New Immigration Plan: 'Same Thing' as Obama

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday continued to walk back his aggressive stance on immigration issues, saying he would "do the same thing" as President Obama and former president George W. Bush but perhaps with "more energy" when it comes to undocumented immigrants.

"We are going to obey the existing laws. Now, the existing laws are very strong. The existing laws, the first thing we are going to do if and when I win, is we are going to get rid of all of the bad ones," Trump said in a Fox News interview Monday night. "We have gang members. We have killers. We have a lot of bad people that have to get out of this country. We are going to get them out. And the police know who they are."

But Trump then added that "everybody else" will go through an existing process in use by the Obama administration, although the GOP nominee said he would enforce the law "perhaps with a lot more energy."

Trump appeared to have praised Obama for his immigration policies after having repeatedly hit the sitting president on the issue for the last year.

"What people don't know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country," said Trump. "Bush, the same thing. Lots of people were brought out of the country with the existing laws. Well, I'm going to do the same thing and I just said that."

It's a sharp turn for Trump compared to his year of campaigning for the White House, but not totally unexpected after recent days of signaling that the New York businessman was rethinking his stance on immigration following a meeting with Hispanic leaders last week. Trump's statement also further confuses his position on the matter after having long proposed a massive border wall and insisted that all undocumented immigrants "have got to go" by using a "deportation force."

Trump, however, denied on Fox News early Monday that he was "flip-flopping" on his immigration proposals, saying, "We want to come up with a really fair but firm answer. It has to be very firm." He added: "But we want to come up with something fair."

During the primary season, Trump frequently denounced his Republican rivals for being too weak on immigration.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best; they're not sending you," Trump said in his announcement speech. "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

In recent national polling, Clinton leads head-to-head match-ups against Trump, with the Democrat holding 47 percent support compared to 41.5 percent for the New York businessman, according to averages compiled by RealClear Politics.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons