Trump retreats from vow to deport all living in US illegally

PHOENIX (AP) — Donald Trump is retreating from his vow to deport the nation's entire population of people living in the country illegally, even as he sticks with an aggressive tone on illegal immigration and remains committed to building a physical wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The Republican nominee for president promised Wednesday to remove millions of people living in the country illegally if elected president, warning that failure to do so would jeopardize the "well-being of the American people."

"Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation," Trump said in a highly anticipated speech, which took place mere hours after his surprise meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in his first trip abroad as the GOP nominee.

[...] the billionaire New Yorker also said the effort of a proposed immigration task force in a Trump administration would focus on removing criminals, people who have overstayed their visas and other immediate security threats.

Trump instead repeated the standard Republican talking point that only after securing the border can a discussion begin to take place about all such immigrants, ducking the major question that has frustrated past congressional attempts at remaking the nation's immigration laws.

The good feelings from his first meeting with a head of state as his party's presidential nominee lasted only a short time, as a dispute arose in the hours after he left Mexico City over the most contentious part of the billionaire's plans to fight illegal immigration — his insistence that Mexico must pay to build a physical wall along the roughly 2,000-mile U.S. southern border.