Politics

Republican Platform: Build That Wall!

Donald Trump Reuters/Joshua Roberts

Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
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Donald Trump is poised to put his permanent mark on the Republican Party as drafts for the party platform include language supporting the construction of a wall on America’s southern border and “special scrutiny” of immigrants from countries associated with Islamic terrorism.

“So not only is the Platform Committee recognizing the position Donald Trump has held throughout the primary process, it has been endorsed by the American people, who have overwhelmingly supported his positions and overwhelmingly made him the presumptive nominee,” Stephen Stepanek, a committee member and delegate from New Hampshire, told The Hill Tuesday.

The draft approved Tuesday calls for the “construction of a physical barrier.” The 2012 platform, in contrast, supported the completion of the double-layer fencing that was originally proposed in 2006 and never finished.

“The Romney campaign was very heavy handed about influencing the platform,” Russ Walker, an Oregon delegate who was on the Platform Committee in 2012 and this year, told The Hill. “It’s far less that way this time from the Trump campaign. What’s happened is the current Platform Committee is in sync with Trump and using language in the platform to say the things they’ve wanted to say for some time.”

The wall the draft platform calls for would cover “the entirety of the Southern Border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.”

One of the few changes to immigration part of the platform was from Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state and Trump supporter, who wished the platform to refer to “illegal immigrants” as “illegal aliens.”

The platform also says refugees who “cannot be carefully vetted cannot be admitted to the country, especially those whose homelands have been the breeding grounds for terrorism,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Trump’s immigration policies weren’t the only part of his candidacy to impact the platform, as “America First” trade policy language was included.

The 2012 GOP platform said, “The Free Trade Agreements negotiated with friendly democracies since President Reagan’s trailblazing pact with Israel in 1985 facilitated the creation of nearly ten million jobs supported by our exports. That record makes all the more deplorable the current Administration’s slowness in completing agreements begun by its predecessor and its failure to pursue.”

“A Republican President will complete negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership to open rapidly developing Asian markets to U.S. products,” the 2012 GOP platform went on to say.

Delegates meeting in Cleveland Tuesday backed a draft platform that states, “We need better negotiated trade agreements that put America first. We cannot allow foreign governments to limit American access to their markets while stealing our designs, patents, brands, know-how and technology.”