Bettina Inclan, the Republican National Committee’s Hispanic Outreach Director, told reporters on Tuesday morning that Mitt Romney is still deciding his position on immigration.
“As a candidate, to my understanding, he’s still deciding what his position on immigration is. So I can’t talk about what his proposal’s going to be because I don’t know what Romney, exactly, he’s talked about different issues,” she said. “I can’t talk about something that I don’t know what the position is.”
Thankfully for Inclan, The National Memo is here to help. Here is a slideshow explaining some of Romney’s positions on immigration, which he’s stated so clearly that no amount of Etch-a-Sketch shaking could erase them.
Build A Giant Fence
Romney said at the 2011 Republican debate at the Reagan Library that he would secure the border with a 2,600 mile fence and hire “enough agents to secure that fence.”
It’s unclear what Romney hopes this will accomplish, considering that he admitted just a sentence later that immigrants “can always get a ladder to go over the fence.”
Veto The DREAM Act
In the buildup to the Iowa caucus, Romney promised that he would veto the DREAM Act, leading DNC Senior Adviser for Hispanic Affairs Juan Sepulveda to declare that “Mitt Romney’s far-right views on immigration would make him the most extreme presidential nominee in recent memory.”
Follow Arizona’s Crazy Lead
Romney said at a February debate that “I think you see a model in Arizona,” as noted crackpot (and former Romney endorser) Sheriff Joe Arpaio watched approvingly.
Russell Pearce — the author of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, the country’s harshest anti-immigrant law — has said that Romney’s immigration policy is “identical to mine.”
End Bilingual Education
In a 2007 interview, Romney bragged about Massachusetts’ move from bilingual education to “English immersion,” saying that “to be successful in America you have to speak the language of America.”
Romney also told The New Hampshire Union Leader in 2007 that “we cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada.”
Make Immigrants So Miserable That They’ll “Self-Deport”
At the January 23rd Florida presidential debate, Romney suggested that, having suffered all of the indignities of life under his administration, illegal immigrants would become so discouraged that they would voluntarily “self-deport.” The plan seems so ridiculous on its face that it drew laughter from the audience.
