He’s been Governing Wisconsin. Which quite frankly doesn’t have a lot of skin in the southern border game yet.
Scott Walker supports mass immigration, probably including amnesty
As usual for those in the Koch family sphere, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker supports large-scale immigration. That is, a system where many more people could come here legally than do so currently.
Walker is also not a strong and vocal opponent of mass legalization (aka amnesty, aka a path to citizenship). Earlier this year he made a comment suggesting that he supports mass legalization, but now he's attempting to dance around that comment but without ruling out mass legalization. Walker clearly isn't an ideologue on immigration nor does he make it a priority. But, based on my long history of being right about who actually opposes mass legalization and who doesn't, all Walker is waiting for is the right set of circumstances to openly support mass legalization. Those circumstances might include things like a major donor wanting amnesty, or Walker thinking it would get him votes for his next election.
Walker supporters will no doubt disagree, so they're invited to get Walker to explicitly state that he will oppose any legalization plan for more than 100,000 illegal aliens. If he dodges that question, then no other answer is needed.
On July 2, 2013 Walker spoke to the Wausau Daily Herald editorial board [1] and was asked "The biggest split is about what to do about those 11 million, however many people it is. Can you envision a world where, with the right penalties and waiting periods and meet the requirements, where those people could get citizenship?"
Walker's response:
Sure. I think it makes sense. But, what I'm saying is [unintelligible] of fixing it. Because otherwise we do this kind of bandaid approach... the mere fact that [the federal government is] having that debate without having a discussion about why is the system itself, why aren't we fixing that just seems to be kind of the vacuum that decisions are made in at the federal level.
As can be seen on the video at [1], Walker's "Sure" wasn't just throat-clearing: he had no objection to giving citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. Imagine how someone who truly opposes amnesty would respond in such a case. Would they say, "sure"? Or, would they say "no way" and point out the problems inherent in such a legalization plan?
Earlier in the interview, Walker said this:
If people want to come here and work hard in America, I don't care if they come from Mexico, or Canada, or Ireland, or Germany or South Africa or anywhere else, I want them here. To me, if people want to come to live the American dream, if they want to work hard, self-determination and have their kids have a better life, that's what folks like my brothers-in-law who immigrated a generation ago from Mexico or people like my ancestors who came from places like Ireland and Germany and other parts of the world many generations ago. I mean, there's a similar pattern there people who risked a lot whether it was traveling across the ocean or across a national border... Not only do they have to fix things for people already here, find some way to deal with that, there's got to be a larger way to fix the system in the first place because if it wasn't so cumbersome, if there wasn't such a long wait if it wasn't so difficult to get in you wouldn't have the other problems that we have with people who don't have legal status here in the first place.
1. Walker is a typical fiscal conservative in that his only concern is economic: he's not concerned with the political and cultural impacts of immigration. What if, for example, immigration from one country gives that country political power inside the U.S. (see Mexican government)? Walker doesn't care.
2. Walker's idea that today's immigration is like yesteryear's is the immigration tradition fallacy, see the link.
3. Walker is using the system is broken canard.
4. The idea that more legal immigration would dry up illegal immigration is absurd. There's a huge supply of potential illegal aliens, and loosening our immigration laws even more would send a message to them that they should try to come here one way or another. Increasing legal immigration would increase the network effect, encouraging more people to come here one way or another. It would also give more power to the groups that currently support massive and/or illegal immigration.
Ted Cruz is a superstar. An exceptional leader like him comes once in a lifetime if ever.
It wouldn’t matter if he was dog catcher in the Aleuts, he is destined to be America’s leader and nothing can change that.