Hillary Clinton’s campaign probably thought it a brilliant move when she ‘went big’ on immigration in May, pledging to out-amnesty President Obama by extending the latter’s (now-stalled) executive amnesty to the parents of so-called “Dreamers” (undocumented immigrants brought over the border as children by … well, their parents).  One of the challenges Hillary faces, after all, is preserving enough of the Obama coalition to win. She might not replicate Obama’s turnout of African-Americans — but she could maybe make up for it by increasing the Democratic “lock” on the growing Latino vote.

That’s the theory. But now Donald Trump’s campaign is demonstrating that opposition to illegal immigration is much deeper and more salient in the population at large than many analysts thought. Hillary does need some non-Latino voters! The more the better, in fact. In the past she might have appealed to them with a few Clintonian feints in their direction — saying she was “adamantly against illegal immigration,” waffling on the drivers’ license issue, saying unaccompanied minors streaming across the border “should be sent back,” or complaining about the hiring of people on street corners “waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work,” all of which she’s done in the past. But now Hillary’s so far out on the pro-illegal please-Rep. Gutierrez limb she can’t make these obvious moves without seeming to flip-flop — double-crossing, or at least brutally disappointing Latino immigration activists. …