[CaptainK]

Advisers had assumed that Perry’s record dealing with border issues would satisfy immigration hard-liners. But they underestimated how his support for a Texas law that provides in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants if they have lived in the state three years and graduated from high school would undermine his conservative bona fides.

“It is at least interesting that a 10-year-old law that passed with little opposition and treats Texas residents equally would be an issue,” said Ray Sullivan, the campaign communications director.

He's still surrounding himself with yes men concerning illegal immigration because he refuses to see how opposed most Republicans are to it. When so much hubris is ingrained in a candidate and his underlings I expect his polls to continue to sink.

[ziravan]

“It is at least interesting that a 10-year-old law that passed with little opposition and treats Texas residents equally would be an issue,” said Ray Sullivan, the campaign communications director.

Perry himself has taken to downplaying the illegal issue by referring to illegals as 'Texas Residents'. This is a tripling-down fail on the issue that is sinking his campaign. Do they think we're stupid? If they refer to illegals as residents that we'll all forget the illegal part?

More important, just as calling us heartless says much about the Perry mindset, NOW referring to illegals as residents just reinforces the view that Perry is an open borders amnesty politician. You Perry supporters can try to refute that all you want - impressions mean everything and the 'heartless' comment was a doubling down on this issue and now the 'illegals are Texas Residents' meme triples down on it. It is making a lasting impression and that explains Perry's free fall.

If Perry is to have a chance at a reboot, he needs to take bold action to reverse the impression that now sticks that he's an open borders tool of Bob Perry.

He needs to call a special session to deal with the sanctuary city legislation that didn't make it through this year. He needs to use that session as a vehicle to call national attention to tough immigration policies that he needs to actually endorse. I would suggest that he also let the tuition law come up for debate during that special session and let it get voted on again to show that he will yield to the public on such a thing (all the while pointing out that he will yield to the national public on the issue at the Federal level and he was ABSOLUTELY heard their opinion on that). Such a session over the next several weeks would give Perry a platform to actually reboot his campaign and take this issue off the table. The media would certainly consider it big news, maybe as big as "9-9-9". That would go far to rehabilitation. But, it also calls for Perry to do a 180 on immigration.

The time has come (no - it's long past) for Perry to choose to die on this hill (he's already on life support), or live on to fight another battle.

[Grey Eagle]

Republicans were in charge of the Legislature when it passed. It is a TX issue and had nothing to do with federal responsibility of securing the borders.