Donald Trump, tempering the tone of his hard-line approach to tackling immigration reform for a general election audience, avoided endorsing his previous call for mass deportations on Monday and instead said he wants to come up with a "really fair" plan to address the millions of undocumented immigrants now in the country.

The softer comments from Trump, who postponed plans to give a major immigration speech this week in Colorado, follow months of vows to build a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico and deport immigrants who have entered the country illegally. Those proposals were a centerpiece of the platform that helped propel Trump to winning the Republican presidential nomination, and a shift would be significant.

Asked on Fox News if he was flip-flopping on his immigration ideas, Trump insisted that he still intends to be "strong" while emphasizing the importance of fairness when it comes to immigrants living in the United States illegally.

"We want to come up with a really fair, but firm, answer," Trump said. "It has to be firm. But we want to come up with something fair."

Although he held back on offering specifics, Trump's different tone could be an attempt to court moderate Republican voters disturbed by the candidate's tough stances on immigration. His remarks come as recent polls have shown him falling behind Hillary Clinton in several swing states and struggling to appeal to minorities.

The campaign has sent out conflicting signals about whether Trump would actually change his proposals regarding immigration. Speaking Monday evening at a rally in Akron, Ohio, Trump didn't mention any changes in his immigration policy, but promised another of his key proposals, to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

Trump's new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, signaled on Sunday that he has been reconsidering his approach to deportations. Pressed in an interview on CNN as to whether a deportation force was still on the table as a law enforcement measure, Conway said it was "to be determined."

Any reversal on immigration by Trump would represent a political feat, considering he has said repeatedly that "we don't have a country" if border laws are not enforced.