Trump’s secretary of labor pick...pro-immigration Republican Trump campaigned against

Vox ^ | December 8, 2016 | Dara Lind

[Pinkbell]

(Snip)

As an executive in a low-wage industry dominated by “low-skilled” workers (many of them immigrants, and often unauthorized immigrants), Puzder has been an outspoken supporter of low-skilled immigration to the US — and of immigration reform that would legalize unauthorized immigrants who are already here.

(Snip)

Puzder is a leading member of the GOP’s pro-immigrant wing — which Trump ran, and won, against

In early 2015 (before Trump entered the race), Puzder participated in a press call warning the Republican candidates for president to follow Jeb Bush’s “lead” on immigration. “People vote with their hearts ... our values dictate we should be the party of immigration reform,” he said.

By pretty much any measure, this attitude was totally repudiated in the GOP primary by Trump and his supporters. Trump mocked Bush mercilessly for calling unauthorized immigration an “act of love,” and his own characterizations of immigrants tended to focus on their potential to kill American citizens. And many Republican voters — voting with their hearts — sided with Trump.

But Puzder’s feelings about unauthorized immigrants are much more Bushian than Trumpian.

In a 2013 panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, as Frum pointed out on Twitter, Puzder said that immigrant workers were often more grateful for their jobs than native ones — an attitude that contrasts starkly with Trump’s crusade against companies that “replace” native workers with non-native ones so they can pay lower wages.

And during the 2015 call, Puzder expressed sympathy for unauthorized workers who “live in fear of being deported, losing what they've built and being separated from their families."

[pepsi_junkie]

Immigration reform is a third rail for Trump. Step on it and he is electrocuted by his supporters, figuratively speaking. I have to believe he is smart enough not to run a campaign as a straight shooting non-nonsense outsider with stopping illegal immigration as his signature issue and then immediately abandon it upon getting elected. If he does that, he played us all for fools and won but will be a hamstrung President on day one with no friends and no support, and will be a one term President at that.

I don't think he's the stupid or that he was lying to us. So we'll have to see how this plays out.