I read Donald Trump's immigration plan, and it's even crueler than I expected
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/18/9171919/donald-trump-immigration-plan
That is, as far as I can tell, Donald Trump's strategy on immigration. He has promised all manner of improbable outcomes — like that Mexico will pay to build a wall that only America wants, or that unauthorized immigrants will leave without America having to conduct mass deportations....
Trump's plan is to inflict tremendous pain on vulnerable people who have, in most cases, done nothing wrong. In some instances, he wants to inflict that pain in order to make another, more powerful actor do something he wants. In some cases, he seems to want to inflict that pain for no particular reason at all. But his plan, read in its totality, is breathtaking in its callousness.
If you understand immigration policy as a kind of negotiation between the United States government, legal immigrants, and unauthorized immigrants — which is clearly how Trump understands it — his plan is to win the negotiation by being willing to inflict more suffering than the other actors can bear; he is willing to care least about the human cost of the negotiation.
The plan would be a disaster for immigrants if enacted. But even if it's not enacted, the plan is a disaster for the Republican Party, which is somehow going to need to co-opt Trump's appeal to anti-immigration voters, but absolutely cannot afford to be associated, in the minds of Hispanic voters, with this document.