Some Context on the Coming GOP Immigration Debate
prospect.org/csnc
The group blog of The American Prospect
By Paul Waldman
Posted 09/02/2011 at 10:51 AM

Could immigration be Rick Perry‘s Achilles’ heel? Folks are beginning to ask. Republican primary voters, The Washington Post tells us, are pestering Republican presidential candidates about it. Ed Kilgore suggests it could be a problem for Perry in South Carolina. So we might be headed for a repeat of the 2008 primaries, where the contest between the candidates to prove themselves the most anti-immigrant grew so frenzied that it led John McCain to come out forcefully against the comprehensive immigration bill sponsored by some guy named John McCain. I think Tom Tancredo may have pledged to personally pistol-whip an immigrant, but my memory on that may be faulty.

As it happens, Perry’s history on immigration is rather—cover the children’s ears—moderate. As Kilgore explains:
[quote]He has, after all, consistently supported a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, both positions contemptuously dismissed as code for “amnestyâ€