The Republican presidential candidates are competing to see who can take the hardest stances on immigration. On Saturday night, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee hosted a Fox News forum in which the candidates appeared individually to discuss immigration.
On the topic of deportations, former Sen. Rick Santorum, said, “I don’t like to break up families, but … we’re not sending them to Siberia. They’re going to Mexico, which is a great country, a nice country.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann intends to deport every one of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, which the Department of Homeland Security has estimated would cost $135 billion. “It would be enforcement, enforcement at the border,” she said. “What we simply need to do is start enforcing those laws, which we aren’t doing.” When grilled on the topic at the forum, Bachmann did not provide any details about how she plans to carry out mass deportations.
Many of the candidates oppose the idea of amnesty and have accused former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of supporting this idea through his controversial proposal to allow some of the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants to stay in the country. Gingrich emphasized that only illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for more than two decades would be eligible to stay, provided that they have a U.S. citizen sponsor. Gingrich has made it clear that he also favors the fence and increased enforcement of the law.
Mitt Romney, has pointed out that in his time as governor of Massachusetts he opposed legislation that intended to provide in-state tuition to illegal immigrants and allow them to obtain driver’s licenses.
Perry has repeatedly his pledged to “shut down” and secure the border immediately upon election, but Romney has criticized him for granting in-state college tuition to the children of illegal immigrants in Texas. Perry also supports more deportations.
But American voters, not even the bulk of Republican voters, are asking for these types of hard line stances.
Two-thirds of Republicans agree that there should be some sort of program so that “illegal immigrants who pay taxes and obey the law” have a way of remaining in the United States. Likewise, only one-third believe that the problem is solvable through deportations. Needless to say, hard line anti-immigration promises will alienate a huge segment of the voting population- Latino voters. A recent Univision poll found that Latinos favored Obama over Romney by a lopsided 67% to 24%, an even larger margin than Obama enjoyed over John McCain in 2008.
It seems likely that by the time elections start rolling around, the Republican candidates will need to sound more like the Romney from 2007 when he said, “The 12 million or so that are here illegally should be able to sign up for permanent residency or citizenship, but they should not be given a special pathway, a special guarantee that all of them get to stay here,” if they have any hopes of winning a significant portion of the Latino votes.
This seems to be an issue on which many Republican voters are more sensible than their Republican candidates.
