GOP alienating one another with immigration?

DONALD TRUMP has exposed anew the deep rift inside the Republican Party on immigration, a break between its past and the country's future the party itself has said it must bridge if the GOP ever hopes to win back the White House.

As they headed into the 2016 election, Republicans thought they had a strategy for moving past their immigration woes. Outlined in a so-called "autopsy" of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney's loss to President Obama, it called for passing "comprehensive immigration reform" - shorthand for resolving the status of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.

Those plans ran aground in the GOP-controlled House, falling victim to the passionate opposition among conservatives to anything they deem "amnesty" for such immigrants.

Some Republicans then hoped candidates with more moderate positions on immigration - such as Jeb Bush, the Spanish-speaking former Florida governor, or Sen. Marco Rubio, a Miami native and son of Cuban parents - would rise during the 2016 campaign and boost the party's appeal to Hispanic voters.

Instead, it's Trump - with his call to deport everyone living in the U.S. illegally and eliminate birthright citizenship - who has surged to the top of the summer polls, reinforcing the lasting power of white, conservative voters who the GOP has courted for decades and continue to dominate the party's presidential primaries.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was in Cleveland yesterday and drew parallels between terrorist organizations and the field of Republican candidates for president when it comes to their views on women.

She told the Ohio audience that her potential GOP rivals were pushing "out-of-date" policies.

"Now extreme views about women? We expect that from some of the terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world," Clinton said.

"But it's a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States, yet they espouse out-of-date and out-of-touch policies," she added at a rally with 2,800 people in Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University. "They are dead wrong for 21st century America."

In her remarks, she did not mention any specific terrorist or militant groups, such as the Islamic State, which has held women as sex slaves in Iraq and Syria. Republicans swiftly accused the Democratic presidential front-runner of directly comparing the Republican presidential field to terrorists.

"For Hillary Clinton to equate her political opponents to terrorists is a new low for her flailing campaign," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Allison Moore. "She should apologize immediately for her inflammatory rhetoric."