After staking his early campaign on caustic and contentious remarks about undocumented immigrants, Donald J. Trump on Sunday outlined his plan to fix the country’s immigration system and deal with people who are in the country illegally.
The position paper, published on Mr. Trump’s website, centered on three principles. The first stated that “a nation without borders is not a nation” — a theme Mr. Trump has made a constant in his stump speeches — and called for a wall to be built along the southern border.
He also repeated his promise to make Mexico pay for the wall and laid out how he would do it: largely through increasing fees on border movement between the United States and Mexico.
“We will not be taken advantage of anymore,” the plan states.
Mr. Trump’s proposal also calls for strengthening the “enforcement arm” of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, to be paid for by “eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.”
The third principle says that “any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.”
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Mr. Trump’s campaign released the plan moments after the candidate appeared in a wide-ranging interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” during which he spoke broadly about his plans to deport undocumented immigrants.
“We have to keep the families together, but they have to go,” Mr. Trump said.
When asked how he might accomplish this, especially given the cost, Mr. Trump responded with a question of his own.
“Do you think there’s tremendous cost for the illegals that are in here right now?” Mr. Trump asked. “Do you think there’s tremendous crime being committed by illegals?”
He promised to “expedite it so people can come back in” after the deportation. “The good people can come back,” he said.
The crimes committed by undocumented immigrants have been a focus of Mr. Trump’s early campaign. He has accused Mexico of sending criminals and rapists to the United States, and has often infuriated Latinos with his remarks.
In his formal policy, as he has many times before, Mr. Trump maintains that “Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country.”
Other parts of the plan are similar to the proposals of his rivals in the Republican race. He proposed enforcing the nationwide e-verify system, ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants and increasing the prevailing wage for the temporary H-1B visas.
While Mr. Trump spent much of the interview reaffirming his stance on illegal immigrants, at times he struggled to answer questions on other issues.
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On foreign policy, Mr. Trump indicated that he was staking out most of his early positions without much outside counsel.
“I watch the shows,” Mr. Trump said when asked whom he talked to for military advice. “I mean, I really see a lot of great — you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows and you have the generals and you have certain people that you like.” He later added that he was a fan of former Ambassador John R. Bolton and retired Col. Jack Jacobs.
When it came to criticizing his Republican rivals, Mr. Trump mentioned only one by name: Jeb Bush.
He went after Mr. Bush repeatedly and unprompted, calling him a “puppet” to donors and arguing that Mr. Bush’s comment regarding federal funding for women’s health was his “47 percent” moment — a comparison to a comment made by Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign that many said made him appear out of touch with voters.
“He’s made so many flubs, I don’t even understand it,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Bush.
Mr. Trump again was the topic du jour on the Sunday morning political talk shows, even those on which he did not appear.
Two candidates whose profiles have risen in the past week after the first Republican debate — Carly Fiorina and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio — were both asked about Mr. Trump.
Mr. Kasich made no direct comments about Mr. Trump, and even avoided saying his name when answering a question about the real estate mogul’s view of the electorate.
“I want people to know what I’m all about right now, because I think the country needs lifting,” Mr. Kasich said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think it needs uniting.”
Mrs. Fiorina, who has been the subject of criticism from Mr. Trump, took a slightly different tone when asked about him on ABC’s “This Week.”
“Honestly, you know, I find it sort of amusing,” Ms. Fiorina said of Mr. Trump’s attacks against her. She claimed not to have spent much time thinking about Mr. Trump, but added that “insults are not helpful to the political process.”
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