Report: Two Years Ago Trump Met Pro-Immigration DREAMers and Said, “You Convinced Me”

By Published on August 27, 2015

On an August day two years ago, Donald Trump was in a much different place: He was just a billionaire with the simple goal of connecting his beauty pageant business with the upcoming Hispanic Heritage Awards.

So at his New York penthouse office atop Trump Tower, he convened a meeting.

Trump ushered in a pair of men — one to talk about the awards and a Democratic strategist who works with nonprofits — and three young DREAMer activists. The DREAMers were on a tour sharing their stories with those less likely to support them, like Tea Party supporters.

Trump, according to four attendees who recounted the meeting to BuzzFeed News, talked about how rich he is (“This is the best view in New York!”), the golf courses he was building around the world, and about each prospective Republican candidate (“What do you think about Jeb Bush?”) and whether Latinos liked them.

Then the DREAMers began telling their life stories.

Jose Machado spoke about how his mom was deported when he was 15 years old. Diego Sanchez talked about how he was trying to go to law school and struggling to come up with ways to pay for it.

Trump alternated between making no sense and broad ignorance on the issue, according to Gaby Pacheco, a prominent national activist and the third DREAMer in the meeting.

“Don’t you think someone in a wheelchair is more deserving than you all?” Trump said to silence.

But he also kept asking, “Can’t you just become a citizen if you want to?” No, we can’t, the activists said, there’s no process for that. Trump was reflective, the activists said.

“You know, the truth is I have a lot of illegals working for me in Miami,” he told them, using the term for undocumented immigrants those in the meeting found offensive. “You know in Miami, my golf course is tended by all these Hispanics — if it wasn’t for them my lawn wouldn’t be the lawn it is, it’s the best lawn,” Pacheco recalled Trump saying.

Read the article “Report: Two Years Ago Trump Met Pro-Immigration DREAMers and Said, “You Convinced Me”” on buzzfeed.com.

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