Thread: CNN to Host Final Debate Ahead of Crucial South Carolina Primary

Well that didn't go very well, Santorum had the best stance on illegal immigration!

My live-tweet of the debate is online:

Happy Trails to Rick Perry and Live-Tweeting the GOP Debate | American-Rattlesnake

The transcript of the debate, this is the part about illegal immigration:

QUESTION: Hi. I would like to ask on the issue of amnesty of the illegal aliens, would you -- how would you secure that the American citizens would get -- keep the jobs in line first for them?

KING: Mr. Speaker, let's start with you on that. She mentioned the word "amnesty." You have explained your position in this campaign. And as you know, some conservatives have said, "No, Mr. Speaker, you say you can't deport maybe it's 10 million, 11 million, some people say as high as 20 million people illegally in this country. You say it's unrealistic to deport them all. So some would have to be given a path to legal status."

And as you know, many conservatives say, "No, that's amnesty, Mr. Speaker."

GINGRICH: Right. What I say, we'll start with I think you have to first of all control the border. I don't think you can pass a comprehensive bill because nobody trusts the government. So first, you control the border. We have a bill that would have it controlled by January 1, 2014. And I'm prepared both to waive all federal regulations to get it built and controlled by 2014 and I'm prepared to move up to half the people who work for Homeland Security -- about 20,000 -- they have 23,000 employees in Washington. I'd be prepared to move half of them to Texas, Arizona and New Mexico if that's what it took to control the border.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: Second, I favor English as the official language of government. And I think that creates a continuity.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: Third, I would actually modernize the legal system of visas, because currently we make it too difficult to come here legally and too easy to come here illegally.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: Fourth, I would make it much easier to deport people. So if you are a non-citizen who belonged, say, to MS-13, an El Salvadorian gang, we should be able to get rid of you in two weeks, not two years. And we should have a much easier deportation.

Fifth, I favor a guest worker program. And I would outsource it to American Express, Visa or MasterCard, because they can run it without fraud and the federal government's hopeless. So you want a system that is accurate and that is anti-fraud, which leads you then to be able to say to private employers, if you hire somebody who's illegal, we're going to have an enormous economic sanction, because there will be no excuse once you have a guest worker program that's legal.

Then you get down to the question of people who are already here. I believe in what I just described most of them will go home.

The one group I signaled out -- and we do have a lively debate on this up here. There are people who have been here 25 years. They've been working. They've been paying their bills.

They're married. They have children. They may have grandchildren. They may be in your church.

Now, I don't think we're going to deport grandmothers and grandfathers who have 25 years of networking and relationships in a community. So I've suggested a World War II-style draft board where local citizens would review the applications. You could only apply if you proved that you were financially responsible, you proved you had genuine family ties, and you had an American family sponsor you.

You still wouldn't get amnesty. You wouldn't get citizenship. You would get a residency permit.

In order to apply for a citizenship, you would have to go back to your own country and get in line behind everybody else and be processed as a person from that country. But I think this is a doable, solvable, practical solution. And I think trying to deport grandmothers and grandfathers will never pass the Congress and would never be accepted by the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Governor Romney, is that the doable, practical solution?

ROMNEY: You know, the issue of illegal immigration is relatively straightforward compared to the tough issues we face, issues like how we're going to compete with China as it grows a military which is of extraordinary scale and a navy of that scale; how we're going to deal with radical violent jihadists; Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, making sure they're solvent. We've got real challenges that are tough. This one is not tough.

You build a fence. You have enough border patrol agents to secure the fence. And you also have a system of giving to people who come here legally an identification card, and you expect employers and insist that employers check that card before they hire someone.

If they don't check the card, if they don't run it through the U.S. database and get an instant response from the government or from MasterCard, Visa, American Express, or whomever, then those employers are going to get severely sanctioned. If you do that, we solve the problem of illegal immigration.

And with regards to those that have come here illegally now, we're not going to round them all up and deport them, but we're also not going to give them a preferential pathway to become permanent residents or citizens. They need to go back home, apply for citizenship, apply for permanent residency, like everyone else. Coming here illegally should not give you an advantage being able to become a permanent resident of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Do you have the same view, Senator?

SANTORUM: Well, I come at it from -- as being the son of an immigrant. And my grandfather came to this country and brought my dad when he was 7 years old. And that's the story that I love and am familiar with, and believe in my heart of hearts that immigration is -- people who want to come to this country and be Americans is really the continuing infusion of freedom and enthusiasm for our country. But when you come here illegally, the first act you take is to break our law, that's a different story.

And we have two folks here, both Governor Romney and Speaker Gingrich. Mitt Romney has a position now that people have to go home. But as of just a few years ago, he said that there could be a pathway to citizenship. He's repeatedly said that.

Now he's changed his position. I understand that. He's done that on a couple of occasions.

And you have Speaker Gingrich, who believes there needs to be a legal pathway. That's where President Obama's position is.

Again, just like health care, we need a clear contrast, someone who can say, look, I have always been for making sure that the law is enforced and enforced fairly. I agree for people who have been here 25 years and maybe have to be separated from their family if they were picked up and deported, but my father grieved for his father when he came to this country and lived here five years.

And other folks who sacrificed, who came here to America, did it the right way according to the law. Because America was worth it. And if you want to be an American, the first thing you should do is respect our laws and obey our laws. And...

(APPLAUSE)

And the idea that someone, whether it's either of these two gentlemen, the idea that someone who came here and lived here 25 years has only broken one law -- if they've worked for 25 years, they've been breaking the law for 25 years.

(APPLAUSE)

If they've been working, they have probably stolen someone's Social Security number and they've committed Social Security fraud. They -- this is not just a single occurrence. It's an ongoing issue. And if we treat people like that differently than we do with a mother who, out of a desperate situation, goes out and shoplifts or does something and gets thrown in jail, what are we saying, that we're going to treat people in this country who do things for their family differently than those who are here illegally?

(APPLAUSE)

I don't think so.

(APPLAUSE)

JOHN KING, DEBATE MODERATOR AND CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You mentioned both Governor Romney and the speaker. Take a moment, quickly. I want to bring Congressman Paul into the conversation. He is essentially saying he doesn't trust you on this.

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R-MA.), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, I ran for president four years ago. This was the position I described when I ran four years ago. I wrote a book, laid out my position. I actually agreed, I think, with what you just said, which is I believe those people who have come here illegally should not be given a preferential path to become permanent residents or citizens of this country.

You shake your head...

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: I'll be happy to show you the quotes of what you said...

ROMNEY: OK, good. Good.

SANTORUM: ... that people should have a pathway to citizenship.

ROMNEY: And the...

SANTORUM: Not -- not -- not citizens, a pathway to be legal in this country, not citizenship.

ROMNEY: And the pathway that I've described is that those individuals who have come here illegally should be able to register in this country, have a temporary period to arrange their affairs and return home and get at the -- at the back of the line like everyone else.

And the position I've had is that the people who have come here illegally should not be given a preferential pathway relative to others but should be able to get in the same line at the back of the line.

And I agree with the senator. I'm sorry you don't acknowledge my agreement, but I agree with you, that this is a nation of laws. At the same time, I think it's important. I'm glad you mentioned this because I didn't in my answer.

And that is we need to underscore the fact that we're a party of legal immigration. We like legal immigration. We want legal immigration.

(APPLAUSE)

And to protect...

(APPLAUSE)

... to protect legal immigration, we want to stop illegal immigration. And we don't want to do anything that would suggest to people, "Come on in here, just wait long enough, whether it's five years or 10 years, wait long enough and we'll take you all in on an amnesty basis." I want people to get in line legally.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Congressman Paul, you're from a border state. If this is a problem, you've heard your colleagues talk about making sure employers, companies that hire large numbers of people, making sure they get the message they can't hire illegals. What about individuals? About a quarter of the illegal immigrants in the country work for individuals. If this is a problem -- if I hired an illegal immigrant, say, to clean my home, should I be prosecuted for doing that?

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX.), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't believe you should be. Because I think those laws are misdirected. That makes you the policeman, or the businessman the policeman, or the Catholic Church the policeman, if they do anything to help an illegal immigrant.

It should be the law enforcers, and that is the border guards. And the federal government's in charge of immigration. So, no, I don't agree with those laws. But it doesn't mean that I'm soft in the issue of illegal immigration.

Illegal -- I can't imagine anybody standing up here and saying, oh, I'm for illegal immigration. We're all against illegal immigration. But I think what we fail to do is -- is look at the incentives.

And it has a lot to do with economics. There's an economic incentive for them to come, for immigrants to come. But there's also an incentive for some of our people in this country not to take a job that's a low-paying job. You're not supposed to say that, but that is true.

But there's also an economic incentive in the welfare state for immigrants to come in. In Texas, we suffer from the fact that there are federal mandates that we have to take care of their medical needs and their educational needs, and it bankrupts some of our -- our school districts and our hospitals. So it's those mandates.

But we need a more generous immigration policy. It should be legal, but we need more resources.

But I find that the resources are all overseas. When I was in the military, I was on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and that is a no- man's-land. You can't see the border. At least we can -- we can see the river south of Texas. We know where the Rio Grande is. Over there, we can't see it. But we're over there fighting and dying over that border, looking for problems. Why don't we take those resources and quit pretending we can defend those borders and put them on our borders and take care of our needs here?

(APPLAUSE)

KING: The Speaker?

(APPLAUSE)

FORMER REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA.), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: John, I just think, if you're going to raise immigration, I want to make the point, on the very first day that I'm inaugurated, I will issue an executive order to the Justice Department to drop the lawsuits against South Carolina, Alabama and Arizona.

The federal government should enforce the law, not stop states from helping it enforce the law.
he transcript of the debate, this is the part about illegal immigration:

Thanks for posting Steve

Originally Posted by working4change

Thanks for posting Steve

You quite welcome! What's funny is Santorum had the best stance on illegal immigration. And I have to admit I was quite surprised by that.

If they've been working, they have probably stolen someone's Social Security number and they've committed Social Security fraud. They -- this is not just a single occurrence. It's an ongoing issue. And if we treat people like that differently than we do with a mother who, out of a desperate situation, goes out and shoplifts or does something and gets thrown in jail, what are we saying, that we're going to treat people in this country who do things for their family differently than those who are here illegally?

This from Santorum struck home for me.

Thanks for the great post Steve.