AUSTIN, Texas -- Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that he is open to "softening" laws dealing with immigrants in the country illegally, a sign that the Republican presidential nominee is considering easing the stance he has taken since the beginning of his campaign.

Taping a town hall-style meeting in Austin for Fox News, Trump was asked by moderator Sean Hannity if he would change current statutes to accommodate law-abiding citizens or longtime residents who have raised children in the United States.

"There certainly can be a softening because we're not looking to hurt people," Trump answered. "We want people -- we have some great people in this country."

He added, "We are going to follow the laws of this country."

Trump repeatedly has declared that if elected, he would deport the 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally. But he has hedged his stance in recent days. During the taping, he ruminated aloud about the fairness of breaking up families. He even polled the audience about what they would do about the crucial policy.

"So you have somebody who's been in the country for 20 years, has done a great job, and everything else," Trump said. "Do we take him and the family and her and him or whatever and send him out?"

The crowd's reaction was split: Some cheered when Trump suggested that the immigrants be allowed to stay, others roared when he suggested deporting them.

The Republican nominee then said he "would come out with a decision very soon" about deportations.

But his new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, may have offered a hint about his position. When she was asked about deportations on CNN on Tuesday, she said Trump "had not said that for a while."

"There could be a way to figure out how to do it so we're not here to harm people," she said.

Trump had been scheduled to outline his immigration policies Thursday in Colorado, but that speech has been postponed.

In the early days of the primaries, Trump vowed to use a "deportation force" to round up and deport the millions of people living in the country illegally. That proposal excited many of his core supporters but alienated Hispanic voters who could be pivotal in key states.

At a rally in Austin later Tuesday, Trump made no mention of his possible shift on deportations, instead repeating his vow to build a wall to fortify the nation's southern border with Mexico and to eject immigrants here illegally who have committed criminal and violent acts.

Trump also paid tribute to Border Patrol agents and to the families of those whose loved ones were murdered by immigrants in the nation illegally.

He brought several agents and women onstage with him at the rally in Austin.

At the rally, the Republican nominee added to his renewed push to woo black voters, with whom he has low approval ratings. Addressing those voters, he said life in the United States for black people is "going in the wrong direction."

"A good education with a great paying job, that's success" in the United States, he said, adding that too many blacks are being left out. "What do you have to lose in trying Trump? I will fix it."

Trump also said he'll fight crime, repeating his claim that in many urban, minority neighborhoods, if "you walk down the street, you get shot."

Trump's meeting taped by Fox News and rally in Texas came a day after Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sat for her own taped TV appearance, pushing back against charges that she's physically unfit for the White House.

"This has become one of their themes," she said in an appearance on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live taped Monday in Los Angeles. "Make sure I'm alive."

Clinton said she doesn't question Trump's health -- she believes he's "healthy as a horse."

She also expressed little concern Monday about the planned release of 15,000 additional State Department emails that went previously undisclosed during an FBI investigation into her use of a private server as secretary of state. The messages could become public in mid-October, just weeks before Election Day.

"My emails are so boring," she told Kimmel. "We've already released 30,000 plus, so what's a few more?"

She joked with Kimmel about photos showing her husband, former President Bill Clinton, smiling and looking overjoyed to be surrounded by the balloons that fell at the end of the Democratic National Convention.

"We were all pretty excited about the balloons," she said. "That's one of the things I enjoy about my husband is that he enjoys so many things and balloons is one of them."

When asked about her preparations for the three debates with Trump, Clinton said she's taking the match-up seriously but is getting ready for "wacky stuff."

As the election season heats up, the Trump campaign says it is prepping for major growth, expanding his headquarters onto two additional floors of Trump Tower in Manhattan. The campaign reported spending nearly $170,000 in rent at the 58-story skyscraper in July, up from $111,000 in June and $73,000 in May.

The expansion is due to the anticipation of new staff, officials said. "The campaign expanded from part of a single floor by adding the entirety of two separate floors," the campaign said in a statement.

The Trump campaign payroll had a mere 85 staff members in July. Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, by comparison, had 705 paid staff members last month.

Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Lere, Jill Colvin and staff members of The Associated Press and by Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy of The Washington Post.

A Section on 08/24/2016