A new Rasmussen poll shows that 66% of likely voters believe that the government should improve border enforcement and reduce illegal immigration.  However, only 32% of America's "Political Class" agree.

The poll also shows that 77% of likely voters believe that illegal aliens should not be able to receive driver's licenses and 73% of Americans believe that police officers should automatically check to see if someone is in this country legally when that person is pulled over for a traffic violation. 

Only 32% of Obama voters considered his support for amnesty as a factor in their decisions to vote for him. 67% said it was either not a factor at all, or they voted for Obama in spite of his stance on amnesty.

60% of voters said reducing illegal immigration and cracking down on employers who hire them is important to them, while only 21% supported "legalizing or creating a pathway to citizenship" for illegal aliens.

57% of voters stated that amnesty would harm American workers and further strain public resources, while only 26% believe amnesty would aid economic recovery and ease public burdens.

The head of an immigration-reduction organization says one Republican presidential hopeful has dramatically improved his grade on immigration issues.

Until recently, Rick Santorum had received a "D-minus" on the immigration grade card compiled by Numbers USA. But Roy Beck, founder and president of the immigration think tank, says the former Pennsylvania senator has raised his grade to an "A-minus" based on some comments he made at a recent event in South Carolina.

Roche said she was also taking a closer look at former Sen. Rick Santorum, who received an A- grade from NumbersUSA, a group that champions reduced immigration to the United States. The group rated both Santorum and Romney "excellent" on opposing "Amnesty/Legalization," but said it could find no record of Romney supporting lower overall immigration levels, both legal and illegal. He received a C+.

Myrtle Beach voter Michael Comer, 60, who heads the group Grand Strand Citizens for Immigration Reduction, also said he would vote for Romney. He said he liked some of the ideas put forward by Ron Paul, the only candidate who has said that children of illegal immigrants should not be automatically granted citizenship if born on U.S. soil, according to NumbersUSA. But Comer said he thought some of Paul's other ideas about government were unworkable.

Immigration seems set to play a large role in the primary. A group called Numbers USA has been running commercials that call on Congress to tighten immigration rules. A diverse cast of characters — white, black, Asian and Hispanic — ask, “Should Congress give new work permits to 1 million new legal immigrants again this year when 20 million Americans of all colors, national origin and religion are having trouble finding jobs?”

Numbers USA is going up on television and radio in South Carolina to push the presidential candidates to oppose immigration.

NumbersUSA announced on Tuesday that it will spend at least $100,000 on advertising before the South Carolina Republican primary on Jan. 21 in an effort to tie high unemployment levels to legal immigration.

Why then are the conservative credentials of Messrs. Gingrich and Perry being questioned? Aren't their positions in line with the Gipper's? Ironically, it is their accusers who are not being true to conservative principles. Many echo the anti-immigration sentiments of such restrictionist groups as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies, which are anything but conservative. These groups are mostly led by population-control activists and radical environmentalists who agree with the absurd Malthusian premise that people are pollution.

Roy Beck is founder and president of Numbers USA, an anti-illegal immigration organization that gives Perry a "D-minus" on its immigration enforcement report card. He says the governor's poor showing in the recent Florida straw poll proves that Republican primaries are not kind to those who appear to be more concerned about workers who are in the country illegally than they are for Americans who need a job.

When Rick Perry got into the Republican presidential race, many party conservatives rejoiced that they had found their candidate. But not the party's vocal immigration hard-liners. On their issue, they rate the Texas governor slightly worse than the rest of the GOP presidential hopefuls.

“During his time as governor of Texas, Rick Perry consistently supported allowing illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition at Texas’ state colleges and universities,” says an assessment of Perry’s immigration record by NumbersUSA.

Here’s what Perry told the New Hampshire Union Leader on July 24: “To punish these young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about.”

Despite giving the Texas governor credit for border enforcement efforts, NumbersUSA, which advocates “lower immigration levels,” gives Perry a “D minus” grade on the issue.

NumbersUSA, which advocates for low levels of immigration, recently gave Perry a D- grade for his various policy stances. While the grade actually puts him in the middle of the pack among presidential contenders (only Michele Bachmann is in "B" territory), Perry's close association with the border guarantee that he'll receive plenty more attention. According to the group's president, Roy Beck, the biggest knock on Perry is his opposition to mandating the use of E-Verify, a federal electronic system for checking prospective workers' immigration status. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) pushed Perry on the issue hard in her 2010 primary campaign against the governor, pledging in a debate to use the system on all state employees.

How many illegal immigrants could gain legal status under an idea proposed by Newt Gingrich? Perhaps as many as 3.5 million, according to figures published Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.

Mr. Gingrich set himself apart from his leading rivals for the Republican presidential nomination last week by saying that he would open a path to legal status for illegal immigrants who had been in the country for many years, had strong family ties here — children and maybe grandchildren — and no criminal record. The Pew Center took up the challenge of calculating how many illegal immigrants might meet Mr. Gingrich’s standards.

Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape.

Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP’s presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test.

Chris Cillizza’s March 28 Monday Fix column, “Growth in Hispanic population poses challenge for Republicans,” argued that results from the 2010 Census paint a grim picture of the Republican Party’s future because of the increase in the number of Hispanic voters.

But this is not true.

Newt Gingrich’s simultaneous courtship of the base of the Republican Party and Latino voters could pose major problems for his likely bid for the White House.

Gingrich, who is soon expected to announce the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, frequently stresses the need for the GOP to reach out to Latinos. According to the 2010 census, Latinos are now the fastest-growing and largest minority group in the country.

It’s not just Arizona.

In states far from the Mexico border — from liberal Massachusetts to moderate Iowa — Democrats and Republicans in gubernatorial races are running on strict anti-illegal-immigration platforms, pledging to sign an array of tough enforcement measures into law come January.

Of the 37 gubernatorial races this year, candidates in more than 20 states have endorsed adopting a strict Arizona-style immigration law or passing legislation that makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live, work and access basic public benefits in their states, according to a POLITICO analysis.

Call it the “Arizona effect.” Immigration got plenty of attention as the 2010 political season got underway in earnest, with primaries in 12 states this week and other races thinning out to the top contenders.

SB 1070, the new hard-line Arizona law that tasks state and local police with immigration enforcement, seemed to create a line in the sand, and candidates were pushed to decide on which side they stood.

More than 1 million immigrants became U.S. citizens last year, the largest surge in history, hastening the ethnic transformation of California's political landscape with more Latinos and Asians now eligible to vote.

Leading the wave, California's 300,000 new citizens accounted for nearly one-third of the nation's total and represented a near-doubling over 2006, according to a recent report by the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics. Florida recorded the second-largest group of new citizens, and Texas claimed the fastest growth.

According to TheHill.com, a congressional newspaper that publishes when Congress is in session, "Romney believes that one way to attract more minorities to the GOP is to pass immigration reform before the next election, saying the issue becomes demagogued by both parties on the campaign trail." The article also quotes Romney as saying, "We have a natural affinity with Hispanic-American voters, Asian-American voters."

As part of conservatives' sober assessment of the 2008 election, we need to take a close look at the so-called "Hispanic vote." I offer the following observations, which are based on the latest available exit poll data and respected voter surveys. The real problem goes much deeper than John McCain's inept campaign. We can and must do a better job of reaching Hispanic voters, but we can do that without pandering or compromising conservative principles.

Janet Napolitano may be as familiar a face in Florence, Italy, as she is in Florence, Ariz.

The selection of "Janet, the Italian sheriff" - as the daily La Stampa put it - to become the nation's next Homeland Security secretary sparked interest and excitement in the country from which Napolitano's grandfather emigrated from in the early 1900s.

Italians are fascinated not only by Napolitano's cultural heritage but also by what they view as her innovative strategies as a border-state governor, hence the term "sheriff," said Maurizio Molinari, the Torino-based newspaper's U.S. correspondent.

"The general perception . . . is that she is in the first row facing illegal immigration," a hot-button issue here and there, Molinari said.

"Her decision to work more to prevent the illegal immigration from inside Arizona (is) a strategy that is very similar (to) the one Italy is trying to apply."