Donald Trump just completed a big reversal on his signature issue

Bush’s, Little Marco Rubio’s, and Lyin’ Ted Cruz’s.

But suddenly, Trump is sounding like some of the people he defeated.

If you listen closely to what Trump has said about immigration since he launched his campaign, you’ll see he wants to build a wall on the U.S. -Mexico border, keep out immigrants who have sinister motives for entering the United States, make it easier for well-intentioned immigrants to come legally, and deport those with criminal records before they do more harm. They want toughness. They want firmness.

“Leaders show up where people in need are, and they hear them, and they help them, and you saw that on full display on Friday”, Conway said referring to Trump’s visit to Louisiana to tour flood damage in Baton Rouge. “He knows he can’t break up families and round up people on buses to kick them out”.

But in a meeting with Hispanic activists on Saturday, Trump indicated that he was open to considering allowing those who have not committed crimes, beyond their immigration offenses, to obtain some form of legal status – though attendees made clear Trump has yet to make up his mind.

“It’s okay to soften some things, but it’s not okay to let people violate the law and be rewarded for it”, he said.

“He’s learned painfully, belatedly, that what stirs up a large part of the Republican primary electorate is not what wins general elections”, said John Rowe, a GOP donor and former CEO of Exelon, who’s planning to vote for libertarian Gary Johnson.

Currently, Trump is polling between 0% and 2% among African-American voters.

Those who characterize this as a flip-flop point to earlier comments such as what Trump said during an interview last August on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a roundtable meeting with the Republican Leadership Initiative in his offices at Trump Tower in NY.

In November, Trump explained he would deploy a “deportation force” to carry out his plans to detain and eject millions of people from the USA and cited President Dwight Eisenhower’s injection of manpower and funding to deport undocumented immigrants in 1954.

“To put it simply, the effects that illegal immigration is having on our country is absolutely staggering”, he said.

The upside for Trump was not immediately apparent.

Inside a county arena known for rodeos, Trump made his appeal to voters.

Where does Donald Trump really stand on whether to deport all 11 million immigrants in the country illegally?

Trump has repeatedly declared that, if elected, he would deport the 11 million people living in the US illegally.

Trump was quick to ridicule his opponents. But in exit polls in 20 primary states, 53 percent of Republican voters supported letting those immigrants stay, even as Trump won the primaries.

“If a few of you still feel that compassion for illegal families not being separated, this is what I have of my family – his ashes”, the woman said. “It’s time to get Tough!”

Trump will spend the week criss-crossing the country for rallies, hitting both swing states and reliable red-state strongholds. Taking Trump’s words last night at face value, though, there is no difference between the “pay back taxes … work with them” position and the Gang of Eight bill, except for the fact that Rubio tried working with Chuck Schumer to pass exactly that policy. There’s no amnesty as such.

The Republican nominee then said he “would come out with a decision very soon” about deportations.