Donald Trump’s stance on domestic policy

Republican nominee Donald Trump has centered his domestic policies around serving America’s economy and security first. Trump’s plans include building “the wall” across America’s southern border to combat illegal immigrants, deporting the ones already in the United States, upholding the Second Amendment to assist in ensuring the safety of citizens and bringing “law and order” into the country to stifle criminal activity.

Regarding illegal immigration, Trump intends to “crack down” and to be “very tough” on the border between the United States and Mexico. He argues that the current immigration system President Barack Obama has implemented is “unconstitutional” and “dysfunctional.” Trump alleges that it allows Mexico to send people who “shouldn’t be in our country” into the United States and “export their crime and poverty from their own country.”

“[Illegal Mexican immigrants are] bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” Trump said in his presidential announcement speech in July 2015. He asserts that “great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants” and that it “must be stopped now.”

Trump has detailed a 10 point proposal on his official campaign website regarding specific steps he plans to take in order to solve the immigration problems while simultaneously “putting America first.” The first point states that as the President of the United States, Trump intends to immediately begin working on an “impenetrable physical wall” on the southern border.

Of course, a project concerning constructing a wall across America would require a considerable amount of money to complete. Trump intends to draw most of the funds from Mexico. He believes that there are “several ways to compel Mexico to pay for the wall”, which are “leverage points”, as he calls them. He argues that choosing to pay for the wall would be an “easy decision” for Mexico. According to Trump, Mexico receives $24 billion a year from remittances, or wired money transfers from within the United States. He claims that the majority comes from “illegal aliens.” Trump states that on day one of being the President of the United States, he would propose a regulation that would prevent aliens from wiring money outside of the United States, and therefore cutting off the $24 billion per year in remittances. Trump asserts that if Mexico were to make a one-time, $5-10 billion payment for the wall, his administration would not put the regulation into effect. This plan would allegedly aid in compelling Mexico to contribute funds toward the wall.

Trump also proposes to use leverage against Mexico in the form of canceling visas. He states that there are “hundreds of thousands of visas” issued for Mexican nationals every year. According to Trump, they are “one of our greatest leverage points.” Trump proclaims that “we have the moral high ground and all the leverage.” He suggests that “it is time we use it in order to Make America Great Again.”

In order to come full circle on immigration issues, Trump has also proposed a plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants already residing in the United States. The process he intends to begin on “day one” would entail the removal of 5 to 6.5 million undocumented immigrants. “Anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation,” Trump’s official website states.

Trump’s gun control policy is traditionally conservative; Trump supports the defense of the Second Amendment and its right to bear arms. His campaign website asserts that that right “shall not be infringed upon. Period.” Trump describes himself as a “very strong person on the Second Amendment.”

When addressing the problems regarding domestic shootings, Trump has repeatedly stated that solving mental health issues is more important than taking away the guns. “The guns don’t pull the trigger. It’s the people who pull the trigger,” Trump said in a 2016 Republican primary debate. Trump argues that whether or not there are guns in America, there’s always going to be mentally ill people and “they’re going to do things that people are not going to believe are possible.” He indicates that mentally ill people participate in school shootings, which, according to Trump, are “very prevalent in this country.”

In order to help prevent shootings in America, Trump believes that the states need to stop trying to save money through “closing hospitals and wards,” which allegedly hinders the effectivity of programs designed to help treat mentally ill people. However, he does not believe that limiting gun sales would provide a positive effect. “If in even Paris, if they had guns on the other side, going in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have 130 plus people dead,” Trump said of the 2015 Paris attacks.

Trump argues that limiting the availability of guns in America is a pointless and ineffective method of stopping mass shootings because all the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns while the criminals keep theirs. Over his campaign, he provided multiple instances of mass shootings where he believes that if the victims were to have had accessibility to guns, it would significantly diminish loss of life and help prevent injuries. For example, he claimed in 2015 that there were more casualties than there should have been in one of the “latest” school shootings because of a gun-free zone. Gun-free zones restrict the carrying of guns in that particular area. Trump argued that if the victims had guns “it would have been a lot better because they could fire back.”

One method that involves checking for guns that Trump has advocated for is called stop-and-frisk. Stop-and-frisk is a two-step procedure that some police officers use when they see someone of reasonable suspicion that that person is dangerous. First, they “stop” the suspect and then conduct a quick pat-down, or the “frisk.”

“Stop-and-frisk worked very well in New York. It brought the crime rate way down. You take the gun away from criminals that shouldn’t be having it,” Trump said in the first presidential debate. “In New York City, we had 2,200 murders, and stop-and-frisk brought it down to 500 murders.”

Trump believes that stop-and-frisk is necessary as part of the plan to bring “law and order” to the United States.

“We need law and order. If we don’t have it, we’re not going to have a country,” Trump said.