Posted on 09/25/2011 10:37:58 AM PDT by Clairity
In this week's GOP Presidential debate, Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Rick Santorum both repeated untruths about Governor Rick Perry's immigration position. It is time to set the record straight.
First let me say, I've not endorsed a candidate and though I've predicted a Perry win in 2012, it is not based on a personal desire, but rather the assessment of all the data that I believe the general election race will be dependent on. I did the same thing in 2006, predicting a Barack Obama win, but by no means endorsing his candidacy.
Second let me also say, this week's debate performance by Governor Rick Perry was bizarre and seemed to run out of complete steam in the final thirty minutes. In fact I was so curious as to the Governor's performance down the stretch I inquired to the Perry campaign to see if the Governor had taken ill, or had some other medical issue arise in the final half hour.
But on Thursday evening it did become clear that the GOP opponents intend to rhetorically bloody Governor Perry as best they can until they begin to be eliminated from the race.
In the debate, Chris Wallace asked a direct question to Mitt Romney regarding the in-state tuition rates of children who live in the state, but happen to have parents who came here illegally.
Mitt Romney replied, "I don't see how it is that a state like Texas--to go to the University of Texas--if you're an illegal alien--you get an in-state tuition discount. D'you know how much that is? It's twenty-two thousand dollars a year. Four years of college you're almost a hundred thousand dollar discount if you're an illegal alien--if you go to the University of Texas. If you're a United States citizen, from any one of the other forty-nine states, you have to pay a hundred thousand dollars more. That doesn't make sense to me. And that kind of magnet, draws people into this country, to get that education, to get that kind of hundred thousand dollar break, it makes no sense..."
I was disappointed that Chris Wallace didn't stop him and make him answer the question he had actually asked him.
Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that many children of illegal aliens aren't illegals themselves. And as long as birth-rite citizenship is the law, anchor babies are protected under the law with equal benefits to all other American citizens.
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? Even Romney has not pledged to go that far.
Maybe Mitt Romney somehow missed the point that Governor Perry's problem is one that the Federal Government created for him. By refusing to enforce current immigration law, the Obama administration has made life for border states unbelievably difficult. And in some cases the Federal Government is even attempting to choke out state's rights to react to border issues in any way whatsoever.
Maybe Mitt Romney is completely ignorant of what the reality of dealing with the border actually means--in real terms. Gov. Perry had to raise $400 million in state taxes to attempt to shore up the border and do the job that the Feds should be doing.
Or maybe Governor Romney believes he doesn't need any votes from legal Hispanics and legal immigrants who are wrestling with the real issue of being in a position where their family's future is in question.
But to set the record straight, it was the state of Texas, and most specifically its lawfully elected legislature that drafted the legislation and passed it with only 4 votes of 181 possible to vote against it. Yes, Governor Perry signed it into law, but it was a definitively bi-partisan initiative that the people of Texas clearly wanted to see become law.
Additionally, Governor Perry has actual compassion for these children who ended up in his state, outside of their own doing. Educating them gets them working and contributing to the state's treasury faster, and is more meaningful than letting them sit on the sidelines.
And despite what the unusually angry Rick Santorum offered, all the legislation did was allow those children (NOT ILLEGAL ALIENS AT LARGE) to get the same "starting point" in state institutions that all of their classmates got. The stupid argument that Romney and Santorum grew red-faced and spittle-spewing over didn't seem to hold true against Texas where non-Texan students would have to pay $88,000 more than other Texas-raised children. And states discriminate that way against other children from other regions of the country--all the time.
President Obama will need to re-energize the American Hispanic vote in order for him to win re-election. They had left him on the economy, and they were never with him on his values. But Mitt Romney--who vows allegiance to a church that had at its core a racist doctrine until only a couple of decades ago--is verging on alienating other ethnic groups, in part because he is not telling the truth about the Texas legislature's law to allow children (not illegal aliens who crossed the border--the children of) to simply pay the same amount of tuition as the kids they sit next to in class.
In short Perry knows this problem intimately. And it will be a cold day in Hades before he ever signs a federal version of the DREAM Act. He believes in fencing, technology, state's rights, and workplace incentives.
Which more or less means he believes in the same enforcement techniques as all the rest of the GOP field.
And for Santorum and Romney to pretend otherwise is sanctimonious and dishonest.
Perry ping
Perry on Border Security
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2783122/posts
Governing Principle
There can be no homeland security without border security, and there can be no higher priority than protecting our citizens.
While our focus begins with preventing the worst of the violence currently raging in northern Mexico from spilling over into the United States, the violence is only part of the destruction that can result from a porous border. The free flow of drugs, weapons and people resulting from inadequate security can undercut economic development, education and trade. As such, they can hurt Texas families in every way imaginable, from loss of jobs to the loss of family members to addiction, imprisonment or death.
Border security is a federal responsibility but a Texas problem, and Texas has invested hundreds of millions of state dollars in efforts to support and supplement security forces already in place. Still, this is a problem that will only be solved with more federal accountability and involvement.
Highlights
— Starting in 2005 with Operation Linebacker, the state has sought to provide funding, manpower and equipment to local law enforcement agencies operating along the Texas-Mexico border.
— The state’s latest operation, Border Star, builds on the successes of previous operations with unprecedented local, state and federal law enforcement coordination. With the assistance of the 80th and 81st Legislatures, the State of Texas has been able to appropriate more than $110 million each session to fund and amplify these efforts.
— In response to a rising tide of gang violence in Texas communities, the Governor allocated $4 million in criminal justice grants to cities across the state to increase patrols of gang hotspots. In 2009, Gov. Perry worked to secure more than $10 million in state funding for enhanced anti-gang efforts during the 2010-11 biennium.
— In September 2009, Gov. Perry announced the formation of highly-skilled Ranger Recon Teams  which include Texas Rangers, Texas National Guard Counterdrug forces, Highway Patrol and DPS Aviation assets  in order to address threats building in the unincorporated areas along the Texas-Mexico border.
— Since early 2009, Gov. Perry has repeatedly called on Washington to authorize the deployment of 1,000 Title 32 National Guard soldiers to the Texas-Mexico border to support border security operations currently underway. (see letter to President Obama, letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and request to Defense Secretary Gates)
—Gov. Perry has also recommended an expeditious deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles to provide real-time surveillance and intelligence to law enforcement on the ground.
This author sure is putting a lot of lipstick on that pig.
Rewarding children of illegals is a MAGNET for more illegals to flood in. Sorry, as a legal immigrant US Citizen myself, I just crossed Perry off my list.
GO HERMAN CAIN!
Don’t you know Perry is done?!!
I read it on FR!! /s
What a dishonest article.
This is about illegals, not the citizen children of illegals (that is topic for another day)
Poor kids can’t help it that their parents are lawbreakers, so let lt them enjoy the spoils.
Likewise, children of bank robbers can’t be blamed for their parents ways, so let them keep the money.
federal_reserve?
BwaaHaa Haa!
“But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.” Rick Perry
I was disappointed in Santorum’s answer, when Perry challenged him on whether he had ever seen the Texas the border.
I was also disappointed that Perry didn’t point out that the Rio Grande is along much of the Texas border and is a valuable source of much needed water.
Too bad he did not say what you said. He did not ignore the attack on Texas and address what he would do with immigration as President.
The policy would not necessiarly be the same - that of Governor of Texas who has to deal with the aftermath of a Federal open borders policy verus President of the US who is responsible for enforcing immigration laws on the ones here illegally and for closing the borders.
Instead he defended what he did in Texas and pulled his trusty race card, smearing Americans (85%) who are against illegals and open borders as “heartless.” Maybe Americans don’t care much for the crime and cost of illegal immigration and maybe they are weary of treason among the elite. My heart goes out to the thousands of Americans victimized by illegals year in and year out and to all the taxpayers who dish out billions a year for their theft of services and prision up keep. We have enough criminals of our own. We don’t need the world’s criminals.
Perry is the only one who understands border security and illegal immigration problem — he has experience from living in Texas and having been governor for 10 years.
All the others are all talk, without knowing what they are talking about.
Yeah, that’s quite the poison dagger.
He is toast.
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If they are not illegal aliens, then they already pay in-state tuition.
We are discussing what citizens of Mexico, or any other nation, should pay.
Also, why aren't these people interested in charging a lower tuition for children from Arizona, or any other state? Don't they care about them?
Oh you’ll love Perry when he is President...he’ll give you back your country.
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