WASHINGTON — 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 Barack 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 summertime 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.