By JAMES ROSEN
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Published Saturday, January 7, 2012

WASHINGTON - When it comes to illegal immigration, Republican presidential candidates are railing like it's 1999.

Listening to the GOP White House aspirants, you wouldn't know that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is down, attempted border crossings are at a 40-year low and President Barack Obama has deported undocumented workers at almost twice the rate as his predecessor.

With slight variations, the top candidates back mass deportations, tough state enforcement laws and extending the 675-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, and they oppose giving most illegal immigrants a path to legal residency.

"Border crossings are at a historic low, deportations are at a historic high, yet every Republican presidential candidate says the first thing we have to do is secure the border," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a Washington group that wants immigration enforcement to focus on serious criminals and national security threats.

The issue will likely heat up in the next two weeks as the White House aspirants campaign to win South Carolina's first-in-the-South GOP primary Jan. 21.

Illegal immigration has long been a hot-button topic in South Carolina, where Sen. Jim DeMint was lionized among Republican activists for his leading role in killing 2007 reform legislation he branded as amnesty.

Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh mocked Sen. Lindsey Graham as "Senator Grahamnesty" for his efforts to pass the measure, and the Seneca Republican has since adopted harder positions on illegal immigration.

Now, a federal judge has blocked a S.C. immigration-enforcement law that was to have taken effect Jan. 1.

Sharry, other pro-immigration advocates and Hispanic lawmakers criticized former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney last week for vowing as president to veto the Dream Act, a bill that would provide legal residency to illegal immigrants who attend college, serve in the military and entered the country before the age of 16.

Charlie Black, a North Carolina native and prominent GOP consultant who ran President Ronald Reagan's winning 1980 campaign, is now advising Romney.

Black acknowledged that Romney's hardline immigration stance runs counter to Reagan, who granted the nation's last broad amnesty, and to Black's support for comprehensive reforms providing a path to legal residency.

"That's the right thing to do, but I'm not running for president and Romney is," Black said. "He's entitled to his own view, and I support him."

Other influential Republicans have warned about reversing the inroads Reagan, President George W. Bush and 2008 GOP nominee John McCain made among Hispanics, the country's fastest-growing demographic group with 21.7 million eligible voters - almost three times the 7.7 million in 1988.

"The Republican Party has to discuss [immigration] in as humane a way as possible," McCain told CNN last month. "We have to have empathy, we have to have concern and we have to have a plan."

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove and former House Republican leader Dick Armey have also warned against alienating Hispanics.

Their advice has not been heeded.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's calls for mass deportations and opposition to any leniency helped him in Iowa, where he came within eight votes of defeating Romney.

Romney and other rivals pilloried former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for saying in a November debate that undocumented workers who've been in the country for decades should be given a chance to gain legal status.

Under attack, Gingrich issued an "immigration fact sheet" detailing his past tough stances. He flew to South Carolina and declared his support for the state's beefed-up enforcement law, now enjoined by a federal judge.

An MSNBC poll last month of likely voters in South Carolina's presidential primary showed them split over a key issue, with 46 percent backing and 48 opposing "limited amnesty for some illegal immigrants."

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