Trump was quick to clarify in his town hall with Fox News's Sean Hannity that this didn't amount to "amnesty." "There's no amnesty, as such," Trump said. "There's no amnesty."

He might want to tell that to the old Donald Trump.

Back during the GOP primary, Trump pilloried Sen. Ted Cruz for supporting a path to legal status for illegal immigrants. Cruz had proposed an amendment to an immigration reform bill that would have stripped its path to citizenship but left intact a path to legal status. His campaign later suggested it was meant to undermine the entire bill and said Cruz didn't support legal status, but it's clear that's what Trump had labeled as "amnesty."

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Trump even launched an ad on the subject.

The ad played Cruz comments from 2013 in which the Texas senator said he wanted "immigration reform to pass ... and that allows those that are here illegally to come out of the shadows."

Those Cruz comments aired as a banner on the screen read "pro amnesty."

Trump would later tweet about Cruz and amnesty:

To be clear, Trump's case that Cruz supported amnesty was based on his comments on illegal immigrants coming "out of the shadows" and Cruz's amendment that would have allowed for a path to legal status to stand. Otherwise, Cruz's stance on immigration was as-tough or even tougher than Trump's. (Cruz even criticized Trump for his own "amnesty" — in this case, allowing illegal immigrants who were deported to apply to return, legally.)

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A member of Trump's group of Hispanic advisers, Steve Cortes, appeared on Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor" on Wednesday night and argued that "amnesty" would require a path to citizenship. But Cruz never embraced that, and Trump still accused him of favoring amnesty.

Indeed, Trump sounds a lot like he's now preparing to allow undocumented immigrants to come "out of the shadows" and live in the United States — legally — with apparent penalties. Many Republicans would certainly call that "amnesty" — including Trump in a former life.