GOP Candidates Face Questions on Amnesty During Reagan Debate

The field of GOP Presidential Hopefuls faced questions on how to secure the border and deal with the 11 million illegal aliens who live in the United States during Wednesday’s
debate held at the Reagan Library. While everyone in the field provided some details to their border security plans, most of the field also danced around the issue of amnesty with only a few providing a strongline opposition to amnesty.

Read Roy’s Live Blog from last night’s debate.

Jose Diaz-Balart from the Spanish-language television network Telemundo began the questioning by asking Gov. Rick Perry how he would go about securing the border.

[T]he first thing you need to do is have boots on the ground. We’ve had a request in to this administration since June — or January of 2009 for 1,000 border patrol agents or National Guard troops, and working towards 3,000 border patrol. That’s just on the Texas border.

There’s another 50 percent more for the entire Mexican border. So you can secure the border, but it requires a commitment of the federal government of putting those boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air.

We think predator drones could be flown, that real-time information coming down to the local and the state and the federal law enforcement. And you can secure the border. And at that particular point in time, then you can have an intellectually appropriate discussion about immigration reform.

But what the moderators failed to do was ask Perry about his position on the DREAM Act. In 2001, Perry signed a bill that allowed illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition, which violates a federal law passed in 1996. He also wasn’t asked about his state having the second largest illegal-alien population in the country.

Diaz-Balart then asked former Gov. Mitt Romney about how to secure the border, specifically whether or not he supported a fence along all 2,600 miles of the Southwest border.

Yes. We got to — we got to have a fence, or the technologically approved system to make sure that we know who’s coming into the country, number one.

Number two, we ought to have enough agents to secure that fence and to make sure that people are coming over are caught.

But Romney’s next statement was the only attempt by any candidate to make the connection between illegal immigration and jobs.

[T]hey can always get a ladder to go over the fence. And people will always run to the country. The reason they come in such great numbers is because we’ve left the magnet on.

And I said, what do you mean, the magnet? And they said, when employers are willing to hire people who are here illegally, that’s a magnet, and it draws them in. And we went in and talked about sanctuary cities, giving tuition breaks to the kids of illegal aliens, employers that, employers that knowingly hire people who are here illegally. Those things also have to be stopped.

Romney ended his statement by opposing amnesty and saying that those waiting in line legally should be put ahead of illegal aliens.

Even MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews agreed with Romney’s statement about the jobs magnet. After the debate, Matthews made the following Tweet:

Romney
is dead right. Illegal hiring is the key reason for illegal
immigration. But business won’t stop. It pays. Cheap labor pays.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was about his involvement as a legistor during the 1986 Immigration Reform bill and said that he supports many parts of the bill but would follow through more on the enforcement provisions.

We ought to control the border, we ought to have a legal guest worker program. We ought to outsource it, frankly, to American Express, Visa, and MasterCard, so there’s no counterfeiting, which there will be with the federal government. We should be very tough on employers once you have that legal program. . . .

And then find a way to deal with folks who are already here, some of whom, frankly, have been here 25 years, are married with kids, live in our local neighborhood, go to our church. It’s got to be done in a much more humane way than thinking that to automatically deport millions of people.

Former Senator Rick Santorum and Gov. John Huntsman agreed with Gingrich’s approach to dealing with illegal aliens already in the U.S. But Huntsman possibly supported increasing legal immigration levelsby saying that it could be a solution to our housing problem.

But let me just say one thing about legal immigration. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that our legal immigration system is broken. And if we want to do something about attracting brain power to this country, if we want to lift real estate values.

For example, why is it that Vancouver is the fastest-growing real estate market in the world today? They allow immigrants in legally, and it lifts all votes (ph). And we need to focus as much on legal immigration.

Washington Post columnist and pro-amnesty adocate Ezra Klein agrees with Huntsman.

Huntsman is right that more immigration would help our housing problem.
Imagine offering a green card to anyone willing to buy a house.

Rep. Michele Bachma, who has the best rating of all the Hopefuls on our Presidential Grid, didn’t address amnesty, but did touch upon rewards for illegal aliens.

One thing that the American people have said to me over and over again — and I was just last week down in Miami. I was visiting the Bay of Pigs Museum with Cuban-Americans. I was down at the Versailles Cafe. I met with a number of people, and it’s very interesting. The Hispanic-American community wants us to stop giving taxpayer- subsidized benefits to illegal aliens and benefits, and they want us to stop giving taxpayer-subsidized benefits to their children as well.

Herman Cain stuck to his four-point plan in dealing with illegal immigration without adding any specifics, and Rep. Ron Paul opposed the notion of a fence along the Southwest border.

I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people want to leave with their capital. And there’s capital controls and there’s people control. So, every time you think of fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us, keeping us in.

Read Roy’s Live Blog from last night’s debate.