CAPITOL REPORT
Immigration looms large in Florida vote
Candidates' challenge: Get an immigration policy that appeals to everyone
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:25 p.m. EST Jan. 25, 2008

TAMPA, Fla. (MarketWatch) -- Cathy Farmer, a 49-year-old Tampa nurse, complains that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans could do. Jon Santiago, 26, thinks there isn't a proper system in place to provide immigrants' children with health care. Seventy-year-old Dan Semenza doesn't have a problem with legal immigrants. But the illegal ones? They're a strain, he says, on American hospitals and schools.

But Semenza, a retired school teacher, speaks for many when he shrugs and says, "You're stuck between a rock and a hard spot" on immigration. That's because some illegal immigrants do jobs current U.S. citizens might not want to do. But they're here -- all 12 million of them -- already, so the issue for presidential candidates is twofold: what to do with them, and what to about those who'd like to come next.

Like perhaps no other issue, illegal immigration is Florida's Catch 22, and Republicans and Democrats alike agree that it's a problem in need of a solution. If the candidates don't have a clear, appealing message about this issue now, they're going to have to get one before they wrap up their campaigns for the state with the country's third-highest population of illegals.

The trouble for the candidates seeking this swing state's 27 electoral votes, though, is that feelings about immigration run the gamut. Some argue that immigrants are needed to fill low-paying jobs. Others say that immigrants ought to be welcomed but that lawbreakers should be sent home. Still others say that hospitals are strained by having to admit illegals.

Looking for a fix
Whatever voters' opinions on the topic, the message to White House hopefuls from Floridians is clear: Do something about illegal immigration.
"It's something that needs to be fixed," says David Royal, a registered Republican and land management company vice president in Bartow, Fla.

Close to 12 million illegal immigrants currently reside in the U.S., according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security. Of those, just under a million live in Florida, giving the Sunshine State the third-highest illegal population after California and Texas. Between 2000 and 2006, Florida's illegal immigrant population saw a 23% increase. Nationwide, most illegal immigrants hail from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala.

In Florida, where the Republican candidates are in wide-open race, immigration will be a key issue that sways voters, recent interviews suggest. But it's not just Republicans: Democrats are just as concerned and say candidates will have to speak to them about the issue to get their vote on Tuesday and in November.

Candidates' positions are also diverse. Hillary Clinton, for example, voted to build a fence along the U.S. border with Mexico, but also supports a system for making illegal immigrants legal. On the Republican side, ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says U.S. cities can't give sanctuary to illegals because it's a national security risk. Rudy Giuliani also calls for a fence and what he calls a tamper-proof biometric ID card for all non-citizens as well as a national database to keep track of foreigners entering and exiting the U.S.

'A strain...on everything'
Immigration is sometimes characterized as a social issue. But to Floridians, it's just as much an economic issue.

"I think that there's a lot of people here that are taking jobs that are needed by people who are citizens," says 20-year-old Kerstin Briggs, of Tampa. Briggs likes both Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Clinton but says Clinton's experience makes her better qualified for the White House.

John Tucci, a 71-year-old retired engineer, has a different take.
"Who do you think built our houses?" asks the resident of The Villages retirement community. While Tucci agrees with most of the candidates that U.S. borders must be controlled, he argues that the economy would suffer without immigrants. "How are you going to replace those workers?" he says.

Tucci and Briggs favor Democrats. But Republicans are just as frustrated, if not more, and some say that the steady stream of people into the U.S. is putting a huge strain on the country.

"The country cannot continue to take in the number of illegal immigrants that are coming in," says Semenza, who lives in The Villages. "It's putting a strain on the schools, it's putting a strain on the hospitals, it's putting a strain on the economy...on everything," he says. He acknowledges that illegal immigrants fill low-wage, necessary jobs. But, he says, "I think the numbers don't justify the number of jobs we have here."

The candidates would have it easy if illegal immigration didn't touch on so many issues: crime, employment, health care and even homeland security. If it were a single-feature topic, White House hopefuls could just agree with Robert Frost that good fences make good neighbors. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all support a fence to keep illegals from entering the country; so do Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

In Florida, though, a fence won't be much of a solution. It's mostly surrounded by water, and the candidates' stance on immigration could sink them if they get immigration wrong.

Robert Schroeder is a reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.
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