Posted on 05/17/2007 3:58:23 PM PDT by loreldan
Boston, MA - Governor Mitt Romney issued the following statement on today's U.S. Senate agreement on immigration reform:
"I strongly oppose today's bill going through the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new 'Z-Visa' does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S.
"Today's Senate agreement falls short of the actions needed to both solve our country's illegal immigration problem and also strengthen our legal immigration system. Border security and a reliable employment verification system must be our first priority."
Re: the comparison to McCain-Feingold — I’m all for digs at McCain, and it’s a clever line by Romney, but only political junkies will get it. Too understated and too complicated.
Hmmm. Liking Mitt more and more.
What was the statement by Fred?
“The stuff Romney is supposedly a RINO on doesn’t bother me a twit. If he’s tough on this and is serious about reducing government waste and spending and strengthening the military to fight what he calls the “global jihadists,” and he promises to appoint conservative justices, he’s all right in my book. Plus, he’s clearly modeling “family values” which is supposed to be one of the core principles of the Republican party.
The fact that he is slick, smart, and calculating is okay by me, too. It’s about time Republicans dump the unsophisticated hicks with constipated communication skills. Stick to your guns on this, Mitt, and you have my vote.”
My sentiments, exactly. I love how some people are quick to call Romney a RINO without considering how difficult it would be to be a conservative governing the most liberal state in the nation because technically, any bill or measure that you agree to sign is drafted by extremely liberal lawmakers. If you aren’t willing to at least make a few concessions here and there to the opposition, nothing would ever get done. But it ends up being a double-edged sword in Romney’s case because people automatically assume that he’s for {{insert liberal position here}} and at a national level (where the legislature would be balanced a lot closer to his own ideology), he wouldn’t govern as a conservative when in fact, I would argue he’d finally be able to govern closer to his conservative ideology than he was allowed in Massachusetts.
I, like you, am leaning more and more towards Romney because of his successful leadership skills and his strong stances on immigration and the war on terror. Truth be told, he’s really the only candidate I’ve heard who seems to be knowledgeable about the entire dynamics of the Middle East. He’s proven that he can get things done and that’s definitely what Washington needs.
And as you mentioned, we might finally have a Republican candidate who can sell the ideas to the American people without sounding like a total Gomer.
Also in Romney’s statement: What’s this about “strengthen our legal immigration system.” What does it mean, and why is it such an urgent need that it belongs in this brief statement?
You’re right, however, that it’s important to see how many other candidates follow suit. I’d also say, important to see how quickly they do it — a clue to their boldness, and to how closely they’ve been following this issue. And how strongly and clearly and memorably they denounce the bill. And how many times they repeat their comments over the next few crucial days. And how eager they are to do that.
Thompson’s comment is brief but excellent. It’s either here on FReep, or it’s at National Review Online (nationalreview.com) — look on the right-hand blog column; it’s somwhere in there, if it’s not on FReep.
“Also in Romney’s statement: What’s this about “strengthen our legal immigration system.” What does it mean, and why is it such an urgent need that it belongs in this brief statement?”
Well, from what I’ve seen and read, I think Romney’s always been a supporter of legal immigration and thinks there are badly reforms needed there as well.
Which may be true, but it raises two questions: Does Romney want to reform legal immigration in ways that encourage more legal immigrants or less, more assimilation or less? And, why does he consider this, apparently, of equal importance to border security, let alone to cracking down on the illegals?
We need fewer legal, as well as fewer illegal, immigrants.
pong
~~I just don’t trust him.~~
I am really starting to like old Mitt. First, he suggested we double the size of Gitmo and now this. Of the so-called big three of McCain, Giuliani, and Romney, Mitt is clearly the Man.
Agree
I don’t think that Romney considers legal immigration of equal or greater importance than illegal immigration and border security, but I do think he’s mindful that once you go forward with kicking the illegals out and making them “get in line” to apply legally (as he mentioned in the 2nd debate), you may have a problem—in the short term—filling a lot of low-paying jobs that they’d be leaving (i.e. the ones that many Americans might consider undesirable). That’s where improvements in legal immigration might be helpful so as to not cause potential economic problems.
Could be.
“I strongly oppose today’s bill going through the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new ‘Z-Visa’ does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S.”
I keep liking this guy. I don’t wanna ‘cause he’s just a little too slick to trust, but he keeps saying the right things.
If you dont understand how badly the legal immigration system needs fixing, you don’t understand the immigration system as a whole. We forbid the wrong people, admit the wrong people, have wrong legal procedures, too many visa categories, too many family/chain migration, have the ‘anchor baby’ problem, etc. Our borken legal immigration system, created by a Kennedy bill in 1964, is the source of our illegal immigration problem.
Amnesties and lax borders only exacerbate the problem.
To throw out a simplistic statement about needing less immigration (Why?) without even noticing that it would require changes to our legal immigration system is oxymoronic.
Romney is 100% right.
I see it: “With this bill, the American people are going to think they are being sold the same bill of goods as before on border security. We should scrap this bill and the whole debate until we can convince the American people that we have secured the borders or at least have made great headway.”
I’m troubled by the words “are going to think”. This is pretty vague.
I am Duncan Hunter Supporter but I definately have to give Governor Romney credit for taking a strong stand on this issue. This will certainly go a long ways towards establishing Romney’s credibility with the conservative base.
1st out of the gate
Bush will might get Gonzales to resign and appoint Cornyn Attorney General, so Cornyn won’t be able to oppose the bill. But then again Bush is pretty stubborn about Gonzales.
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