Trump to meet Mexican President ahead of immigration speech

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is meeting Wednesday with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, ahead of a planned speech explaining the Republican presidential candidate’s immigration policies.

Throughout his run for president, Trump has repeatedly touted his proposal to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexican border with the Mexican government picking up the cost. Nieto has been among the Mexican officials who say there is no way that will happen.

Nieto’s office said on Twitter the Mexican leader has invited both Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for talks about the relationship between the neighboring countries. There was no word from the Clinton campaign as to whether she planned to accept the offer as well.

Trump’s immigration speech is taking place in the southwestern border state of Arizona, which has for years been a focal point of U.S. efforts to curb the stream of illegal immigrants into the country.

In recent days, Trump has offered mixed signals on whether he still supports his original call to create a “deportation force” to send the 11 million undocumented immigrants already living in the United States back to their home countries.

“From day one I said that I was going to build a great wall on the SOUTHERN BORDER, and much more. Stop illegal immigration,” Trump wrote on his Twitter account Tuesday, “Watch Wednesday!”

Trump’s staunch, nationalist anti-immigration stance won him wide support in the state-by-state Republican presidential primaries, helping him surge past seasoned politicians to the Republican nomination in his first contest for elected office.

But national surveys less than three months before the November 8 election against Clinton show many voters in the broader electorate are opposed to mass deportation of families, many of whom have been living in the country for years.

Immigration policy

In several recent interviews, Trump, a brash real estate mogul and one-time television reality show host, has said he wants to quickly deport any undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes, much as the U.S. government already does. He says he is opposed to granting the remaining undocumented immigrants who have not committed crimes a path to U.S. citizenship and said they have to pay taxes they owe the government.

But he has left it unclear exactly how he wants to deal with this large group of immigrants, while still voicing support for construction of the border wall.

His vice presidential running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, told an interviewer Sunday that Trump is like “a CEO at work,” a corporate chieftain consulting with people and considering his options.

“You see someone who is engaging the American people, listening to the American people,” Pence said. “He is hearing from all sides.”

Clinton’s position

Clinton favors border protection, but also comprehensive immigration reform, with a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the country. But such legislation has been stalled in Congress, with Republican opponents in the House of Representatives blocking a plan passed by the Senate and supported by President Barack Obama.

Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state seeking to become the first female U.S. president , holds a five-percentage-point lead over Trump in the latest compilation of national polling by the realclearpolitics.compolitical web site.

Tuesday’s weekly NBC News/Survey Monkey tracking poll said she is ahead by a 48-to-42 percent margin, down from an eight-point edge a week ago.

Numerous U.S. political analysts are predicting she will become the country’s 45th president when Obama leaves office in January, but also say that unforeseen world events or blunders by either candidate in three scheduled Trump-Clinton debates in September and October could alter the track of the campaign.