01/11/2012
We at VDARE.com worry about Mitt Romney. True, with a NumbersUSA C+ grade he is easily the best on immigration of the surviving GOP contenders, but quite apart from anything else he is a Mormon and the Mormon Establishment has gone bad on the issue.
So it was pleasant to find Fox News Latino harrumphing Mitt Romney Pushes Hard Line on Immigration in South Carolina by Elizabeth Llorente January 11, 2012
Around the beginning of the year, voters in South Carolina received mailings that noted the former Massachusetts governor’s position on illegal immigration.
“The mailer talks about putting an end to magnets or benefits that illegal immigrants have,” a local South Carolina publication quoted a Romney campaign spokesman, Ryan Williams, as saying, “ensuring a tamper-proof system that allows employers to check the status of their employees and creating a strong border fence.”
South Carolina has actually been seriously impacted by excessive immigration — the University of South Carolina published a study documenting the damage done to real wages there before the recession after which things must have got worse.
This has had political consequences
South Carolina is among the states that have passed laws to crack down on illegal immigration. A federal judge blocked several provisions of the state’s law from taking effect on New Year’s Day.
Governor Nikki Haley, who has endorsed Romney, proceeded to do something useful:
A Charlotte Observer story said that “Haley told a crowd [of residents] that Romney would promote South Carolina-style conservatism in Washington on everything from voter ID laws to ‘mandatory’ health care to illegal immigration.”The story quoted Haley, who was standing next to Romney, as telling the audience: "I asked him, 'Gov. Romney, can you believe that we passed an illegal immigration bill in this state and the federal government is saying we can’t do it? And he said, 'Every state that passes a law should be able to enforce those laws in their state.' That’s what we need in a president!"
I particularly liked learning from the article:
Other than a Spanish-language television advertisement launched Wednesday in Florida, Romney has not made high-profile overtures to Latino voters, unlike Gingrich, who took Spanish lessons to address Latinos directly, and who started a Spanish-language online forum.
Maybe Washington Watcher is right about Romney
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