The statements you are making now are already retreating from your initial position. "Bringing in drugs and crime" is not equivalent to "every immigrant is a criminal", which was your initial interpretation. I think it's reasonable to disagree with Trump on matters of degree and relevance, but not to wholly twist his statements or rely on divining his state of mind.

One, his statement is not qualified wrt other populations. A strong defense against a similar statement about immigrants in Germany was that the crime level of immigrant populations was of a similar magnitude to natives. Trump's argument could easily be challenged the same way.

The second way would be relevance. It's trivially true that some of the immigrants may bring in crime. Is this important to the discussion? Many decisions have adverse consequences but are still taken as a measure of overall good or moral fortitude. An example would be giving free speech to people with reprehensible ideas - while it may lead to offense and actual harm, it is argued as both a net positive good and a show of moral fortitude, that the societ is secure enough in its beliefs that it ia willing to entertain arguments striking against its core. Similarly, one could argue that Mexican immigrants bring in a net positive(it is a common trope that they are hardworking and willing to take on otherwise undesirable jobs). You could also argue that American society should have(within reason) the fortitude to accept immigrants and give them a chance to integrate and enjoy the benefits of Amercian society.

You don't need to strawman Trump to argue against his rhetoric. By far Trump's strongest political weapon has been to bait people into emotional outrage and theb turn around and use that as ammo.

I am not retreating my initial position. It would be generous if instead of just accusing me of doing so, you could point out what exactly made you believe that.

> "every immigrant is a criminal", which was your initial interpretation

If by "every immigrant" you meant "every Mexican immigrant" then yes, that was sort of (and still is) my interpretation: to say that Mexican immigrants bring drugs is equivalent to say Mexican immigrants are criminals. I beg anyone who disagrees with this interpretation to clearly state why. I honestly want to understand how else the aforementioned speech could be interpreted.

Well, lets look at the exact quote that you are referencing.

"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

I got this from RealClearPolitics and I'll ignore the fact that they quoted it as "they're" instead of "their", even though those words sound identical when spoken. His very next sentence is "And some, I assume, are good people."

So my interpretation is that Trump believes that a disproportionate number of the people illegally crossing the US Mexico border are involved in drug or human trafficking, but some are just people trying to find a better life.

I think Trump is a very poor orator and is kind of dumb, so this didn't come off very well and I can see why people were offended by it, but it is also not fair to leave out the context of his very next sentence when it refutes your agenda.