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.

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