Republicans talk tough against illegal immigration
Sun Dec 9, 2007 8:14pm EST
By Steve Holland
MIAMI (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidates stuck to their tough line against illegal immigration at a Spanish-language debate on Sunday, a stance that could spell trouble for them with Hispanic voters in the election.
Hispanic-Americans backed President George W. Bush’s plan to grant illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship and watched in horror as conservatives torpedoed the plan last summer.
Given the outrage over Bush’s proposal to give illegal immigrants a temporary worker status, Republicans are now strongly in favor of improving control over the U.S. border with Mexico.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended his firing last week of a landscaping company that cared for the lawn at his home, saying he had to terminate the contract with the company because it had employed illegal immigrants even after he had told the company to stop the practice.
“We’re going to end illegal immigration to protect legal immigration,” said Romney.
Even Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose campaign almost collapsed because he took a more compassionate approach toward illegal immigration, spoke of the need for better border enforcement.
“We cannot reward illegal behavior. We have to fix the border,” McCain said, while adding: “We cannot allow this nation to be inhumane or without love and compassion.”
The debate, sponsored by Univision, dealt largely with issues important to Hispanic voters, and was a far more gentlemanly affair than some of the recent Republican encounters.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had a bitter exchange with Romney at the last debate in November over whether either of them had turned a blind eye to illegal immigration, seemed to try to avoid a repeat of that fracas.
He said of illegal immigration: “This is a situation where none of us have been perfect. All of us have been struggling with this for a long time.”
The debate came at a tense time in the race for the Republican presidential race.
Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, has vaulted past Romney to take the lead in many opinion polls in critical Iowa and taken over second place in other national polls behind Giuliani in the quest to be the party’s candidate in the November presidential vote.
Romney has spent millions of dollars in Iowa, which on January 3 begins the state-by-state battle to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates who will contest the November 2008 election for president.
The candidates were largely in agreement on most issues, although a long-shot contender, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, drew some boos from the audience when he said he would be willing to talk to Venezuela’s fiery anti-American president, Hugo Chavez.
Both McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said they preferred to deal with Chavez as Spain’s King Juan Carlos did recently, telling him “Why don’t you shut up?”
“Chavez is acting like a dictator and he should be treated that way,” Giuliani said.
The Republicans also talked tough against Cuba, saying they would maintain the U.S. trade embargo against the communist island.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0933993820071210
It’s not surprising but that article completely overlooks the fact that the Hispanic audience were very supportive of the Republican’s answers on illegal immigration. Republicans are for the rights of legal immigrants. Democrats are for the rights of illegal immigrants and Hispanics who are here legally are fully aware of this. If we stay consistent on this, we can take this demographic away from the Democrats in a fairly short period of time.