Thread: Mitt Romney’s choice: Marco Rubio, or Kris Kobach?

Mitt Romney’s choice: Marco Rubio, or Kris Kobach?

washingtonpost.com
By Greg Sargent | 11:05 AM ET, 04/20/2012

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mitt Romney may soon have to make a difficult choice: Will he align himself with Marco Rubio, or with Kris Kobach?

Rubio has begun a full court press to sell his version of a GOP DREAM Act, releasing new details of it to the media yesterday. Rubio has now told reporters he hopes Romney adopts it. Romney himself was overheard the other day saying Republicans should consider supporting such a measure. A GOP DREAM Act would be central to Romney’s ability to pivot away from his hardline immigration stance during the primary and start making inroads among Latinos.

But in an interview with me, Romney immigration adviser and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach — a widely respected voice on immigration among conservatives — laid down a set of conditions for Rubio’s DREAM Act that will be very difficult for the Florida Senator to meet. And this could present Romney with a hard choice.

Rubio’s proposal has not yet been released. But the Senator said yesterday that his bill would give non-immigrant visas to young illegal immigrants who were brought into the country by a certain date, provided they are high school graduates with no criminal record. That visa would enable them to work and go to school. In other words, they would be given legal status.
But Kobach — whose hardline ideas Romney adopted during the primary — tells me that the only way to make such an approach acceptable is for these illegal immigrants to be required to return to their home country before getting the non-immigrant visa.

“If the bill required the illegal alien to return to his country of origin and get in line for the non-immigrant visa, then that would not be amnesty, and that would be conceivable,” Kobach said. “If it’s extended to people who are here illegally, and they don’t have to leave the country, that would be amnesty.”

“Amnesty allows someone who is illegally in the country to remain but with lawful status — that gives the illegal alien what he has stolen,” Kobach continued, adding that he was nonetheless “encouraged” that Rubio is at least trying to come up with a solution that could be acceptable to opponents of “amnesty.”
This will be a very tough standard for Rubio to meet, if he is to offer any new policy that might hold even a little appeal to Latinos.

Kobach’s status with the Romney campaign is murky. While a Romney spokesperson recently said Kobach is merely a “supporter,” Kobach clarified the other day that the Romney campaign had privately confided to him that he remains an adviser to it on immigration policy.

But in a sense, Kobach’s exact status may be beside the point. His strict standard for a GOP DREAM Act he would be able to find acceptable signals that many right-wing immigration hardliners may oppose any GOP DREAM Act that constitutes anything meaningful in the way of a new policy, and that any effort by Romney to make inroads among Latinos by supporting such a policy could ignite a bitter intraparty battle.

source: Mitt Romney’s choice: Marco Rubio, or Kris Kobach? - The Plum Line - The Washington Post

Romney adviser Kris Kobach: No legal status of any kind for the undocumented

Romney Immigration Adviser Kris Kobach Says Mitt Romney Won’t Support GOP DREAM Act

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Apr 18, 2012 at 2:20 pm



During the GOP presidential primary, Mitt Romney staked out the most extreme position on immigration of any Republican candidate. Romney even campaigned with his immigration policy adviser Kris Kobach, the author of Alabama and Arizona’s harsh immigration laws, on Martin Luther King Day. Now that Romney is the presumptive nominee, he’s trying to soften his immigration rhetoric to win over Hispanic voters. The Romney campaign even tried to publicly downgrade Kobach from “adviser” to mere “supporter” yesterday — an effort that failed after Kobach refused to play along.
Nor is this the only example of Kobach refusing to let Romney etch-a-sketch away his harsh positions on immigration. After Romney said over the weekend that Republicans need to embrace a Republican DREAM Act to win over Hispanic voters, Kobach told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the former Massachusetts governor will not support any version of the DREAM Act that offers a path to legal status — like the GOP version Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) plans to introduce. And he added that no Republican should support such a proposal:

[Kobach] stated flatly that he didn’t think Republicans — or Romney — should, or would, support any version of the DREAM Act that provides undocumented immigrants with any kind of path to legal status.

If Romney sticks to this — and Kobach said he would — there’s very little room for him to moderate his approach to immigration. In addition to advising Romney on immigration, Kobach is a national GOP voice on the issue, suggesting the right would not permit any move of this kind.
“I’d absolutely reject any proposal that would give a path to legal status for illegal aliens en masse,” Kobach said. “That is what amnesty is. I do not expect [Romney] to propose or embrace amnesty.”

Details of Rubio’s proposed DREAM Act have not been announced, but the first-term senator has outlined a plan that would not offer a direct path to citizenship but would enable them to remain in the country legally. Despite his promise to veto the DREAM Act earlier in his campaign, Romney told a crowd at a private fundraiser that he wants a Republican DREAM Act to make the GOP the party of “opportunity.”
But if Rubio’s plan includes a path to legal status, or if Romney supports a plan that does, then Kobach said it would be an “unacceptable” proposal. “A path to legal status for someone who is here illegally is amnesty by definition,” he said. “It gives the alien what he has stolen.”

Romney Immigration Adviser Says Romney Won't Support GOP DREAM Act

Here We GO!!! RED ALERT AMNESTY FIGHT 2012!!!

Go here to join in!

Red Alert: Illegal Alien Amnesty Fight 2012

He would be better off choosing Ron Paul...but Kris Kobach isn't a bad choice, Mark Rubio shouldn't be vice president he isn't a natural born citizen and neither were his parents.., and because of that he can never be President...and the purpose of a vice president is to fulfill the presidency is necessary so why would any one choose him??? So seeing what is going on right now why would anyone even put him up as a contender...when will these people wake up....