Thread: Romney Shifts on Immigration, Sharpens Contrast with McCain

Romney Shifts on Immigration, Sharpening Contrast With McCain

By Heidi Przybyla

(Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney had a tough message on immigration at a March 22 luncheon in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

``I don't think there should be a special pathway to citizenship for those that are here illegally,'' he said. ``It makes no sense at all to have a border which is basically concrete against skill and education but wide open to people to just walk on in who have neither.''

That position sets the former Massachusetts governor apart from a major rival, Arizona Senator John McCain, as well as President George W. Bush, both of whom back a guest-worker plan that gives undocumented workers the opportunity to become U.S. citizens. It also sets him apart from some of his own former positions.

Over a year ago, Romney said it would be impractical to deport 11 million undocumented workers and suggested giving some the path to citizenship he criticizes today. ``The 11 million or so that are here are not going to be rounded up and box-carted out of America,'' Romney said in a March 29, 2006, interview with Bloomberg News.

Romney's decision to shift his stand demonstrates how a big issue sometimes boils up from the voters, forcing candidates to adjust their messages. ``For Republicans it's immigration; for Democrats it's trade,'' Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel said March 28 at the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting in Washington. ``Both issues reflect the unease Americans feel about the effects of globalization.''

Romney, 60, confronts grassroots anger over the flood of illegal immigrants almost daily. In Council Bluffs, that meant hearing from people like Carol Cates, 53, a local police officer.

``It's going to bankrupt our nation if we don't make some changes soon,'' said Cates, who came to size Romney up at the luncheon. ``That's almost a deal-breaker for me. If they're soft on immigration, I won't even consider them.''

While a Bush- and McCain-style immigration overhaul has majority support in the U.S. Senate, many Republican voters have rallied behind an approach backed by the party's House members that stresses enforcement and leaves undocumented workers in the country with no pathway to U.S. citizenship.

According to a Jan. 5-12 Harris Interactive poll, 73 percent of Republicans see large-scale immigration as an extremely likely or very likely threat; only 43 percent of Democrats feel that way.

In Romney' case, ``last year it sounded like he could accept a program that creates a new path; this year he's saying very clearly that he opposes a new path,'' said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Washington organization that favors free-market policies. Romney disputes that interpretation. ``Nothing's changed'' in his approach, he said in Iowa.

Romney began his term as Massachusetts governor in 2003 with a view of immigration reflecting his background as chief executive officer of Bain & Co., a Boston-based venture-capital firm. Many lobbies representing U.S. businesses favor guest- worker programs and say that without one, such industries as agriculture, restaurants and hotels might face labor shortages.

In his Bloomberg interview last year, Romney said: ``We need to begin a process of registering those people, some being returned and some beginning the process of applying for citizenship and establishing legal status.''

About the same time, Romney told the Boston Globe in an interview that the immigration measure backed by McCain, setting a path to citizenship for undocumented workers was ``reasonable,'' and wasn't a blanket amnesty proposal. Undocumented immigrants ``contribute in many cases to our economy and to our society,'' he said.

As Romney moved closer to launching his presidential campaign, he began taking steps that appealed to anti- immigration voters. His threatened veto scuttled a plan to provide low-cost tuition for children of undocumented immigrants, whom he called members of ``an illegal family.'' He also opposed a plan to allow people in the U.S. illegally to obtain drivers' licenses.

In his final month before leaving office in January of this year, he brokered an agreement that permitted state troopers to arrest undocumented workers for immigration violations. The plan was quickly rescinded by his Democratic successor, Deval Patrick.

Romney now calls Senate Republicans' guest-worker plan ``just plain wrong'' and aligns himself more closely with House Republicans' emphasis on English-only education and construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. He also favors a special identity card that employers could use to screen out job applicants in the country illegally.

``How is it we still haven't determined how to secure our border and have an immigration policy that works?'' Romney said in Council Bluffs. ``Our immigration laws are upside down.''

In a Feb. 18 interview with ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos, Romney stressed his opposition to special citizenship opportunities for undocumented workers. ``Those people should go to the back of the line,'' he said. ``People who are here illegally should not get any benefit by being here.'' A number of Romney's advisers have taken public positions that seem more in tune with his former stance than his current one. Former Minnesota Representative Vin Weber, a Washington lobbyist who is Romney's policy chairman, and Cesar Conda, an economic adviser who was domestic policy chief for Vice President Dick Cheney, were among several Republicans to sign a July 2006 Wall Street Journal opinion article that called for a guest-worker program and path to citizenship for undocumented workers.

Greg Mankiw, former chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and another top Romney adviser, was responsible for the 2005 economic report of the president that made the case for open borders.

Meanwhile, Romney isn't the only Republican candidate who's struggling to craft an immigration plank that reflects strong emotions among the party rank-and-file. Even McCain is feeling the heat: The Arizona senator so far hasn't signed on as a co- sponsor of the immigration overhaul legislation he backed last year with Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

Looks like Shifty Romney has been looking at the polling data and hearing from citizens now he is on the campaign trail.

That makes two that have started to shift our way. Romney and McCain.,,

That's great, but the key word here is shift.

W

You can bet all the Presidential hopefuls are banking on a Bill passing this summer that will take them off the hook.

Mitt, stop pretending you are a conservative. You are a liberal through and through!

Romney has been hanging out with Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Neither of them has a chance IMO anyway, but this makes me think once again about how the liberal and conservative labels get stuck to someone like glue and that is what you are, period.

Now I may be wrong, and I am not defending or dogging anyone, just an observation.
Can anyone really say that they are strictly conservative, or strictly liberal? I can not.

I have a 'conservative' view in my stance on some issues, and I have a 'liberal' view on other issues. I think that is part of being a thinking person. It is also most of the problem with our government.

There is no way in the world that all Republicans think one way and all Democrats think another as their voting indicates. That just tells me they play follow the leader in their voting, blind allegiance to a party and not bothering to weigh the issue, or worse, knowing the truth and following anyway. Remember how many in Congress admitted that they didn't even read the Patriot Act before signing it?

In the last election there was a big deal made about flip-flopping by Kerry. I could never figure out what is wrong with having learned more about something and changing your mind? That is what intelligent people do, learn and adjust.

Now Im not saying mctraitor or Romney have done the intelligent thing because I am convinced they are chasing poll numbers, but I just wanted to, um, say what I thought.

I think this is a good thing. And here's why:

The vast majority of our politicians "shift" all the time. And the American people rarely vote in people who have a solid, unchanging historical position on every issue. AKA people who are passionate diehards. And those people tend to not get elected, but shape the debate.

For anyone who's read the "tipping point" they are the Mavens.

The American political scene also tends to forgive and even reward people for "learning" and "seeing the light" on certain isssues (for the opposite of this, just refer to our current admisitration and their Iraq policy).

Again, these people are getting the point. And so the truth is getting out.

= good thing.

e

As long as they don't shift gears once they're elected. Like the Shrub did.

McCain thinks we are idiots and have forgotten his push with Kennedy last year for amnesty. He most likely will shift back if elected. Romney is wishy-washy and goes back and forth. He is just telling us what we want to hear. Not sure what he would do if elected but I do not trust him.

These politicians think everyday is like the first day and what they have done in the past is not counted. Not!!! I would never vote for McCain even if he said he would deport them all as he would be lying. He has a snowball chance in a hot climate of being elected president, someone should just tell him he is wasting his money and time.

I was just reading that Romney. Would consider Jeb Bush as a running mate. Oh heck no not another Bush in Washington.