Rick Perry is under fire for his comment about those who oppose in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. But immigration is a complicated issue for a governor whose border with Mexico is more than 1,200 miles long.
?I don't think you have a heart.?
Skip to next paragraphWhen Rick Perry issued this rejoinder to those who oppose his program to give the children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition privileges in the Texas university system, his GOP debate opponents (and conservatives generally) jumped all over him.
In addition to his jumbled answers to some questions, it was his low point in the Republican presidential candidates? debate Thursday night, and it cost him the Florida straw poll two days later. Some tea party activists even suggested that Perry?s attitude on immigration meant it was all over for the man they once saw as their champion to deflect what seemed to be the juggernaut of Mitt Romney ? the man many conservatives don?t trust and don?t particularly like.
For his part, Romney quickly picked up on the issue.
?I think if you are opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn?t mean you don?t have a heart. It means you have a heart and a brain,? Mitt Romney said the next day at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida.
[For the record, here?s Perry?s full quote: ?If you say that we should not educate children who come into our state for no other reason than that they've been brought there through no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children, because they will become a drag on our society.?]
For Perry, his state?s version of the Obama administration?s ?Dream Act? proposal for helping students without legal immigrant status has become like ?Romneycare? ? a state-specific position that?s hard to justify in the context of today?s national debate on such issues.
But just as health care is for former Massachusetts governor Romney, immigration is a more subtle and complicated issue for a governor whose border with Mexico is more than 1,200 miles long. It?s not as simple as erecting a fence and authorizing local police to enforce federal laws against illegal immigrants (with the racial profiling that might involve).
?Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that many children of illegal aliens aren't illegals themselves. As long as ?birthright citizenship? is the law, ?anchor babies? are protected under the law as American citizens,? writes conservative columnist and broadcaster Kevin McCullough. ?Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that nearly all of the rest of children of illegals, had no choice in whether to live in Texas or not. If they were brought there by parents who were illegal ? how is that the child's fault? Is Romney ready to charge those children with crimes? Mass deportations??
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