Romney's Immigration Plan

Although Romney said he had an immigration plan on June 15, 2012 he did not go into it with Face the Nation on June 26 or bring it up in his convention speech. Romney on September 19 (Univision forum) said “For those that are already here and that are undocumented, that were brought here by their parents and are therefore illegal aliens in this country, my view is that we should put in place a permanent solution”. When specifically asked if he would deport them he said “Well, I’m not in favor of a deportation, mass deportation effort rounding up 12 million people, I believe people make their own choices as to whether they want to go home and that’s what I mean by self deportation.” For the fourth time, Romney did not say what his solution would be. Romney did get a poor spray tan prior to attending the forum. 

Univision on September 20 reminded President Obama that he had made a promise to get an immigration bill through his first year and the President responded with: “There’s the thinking that the President is somebody who is all powerful and can get everything done, we have to have cooperation from all these sources in order to get something done”. I checked out what happened to the immigration bill. I found that on December 8, 2010 - HR 5281 - DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) passed the House. On December 17, 2010 the Act was blocked in the Senate with 55-41 vote (didn’t get the needed 60) and it has since not been approved by either the House or the Senate. A Pew Hispanic Center survey conducted in late 2011 found that more than 9 in 10 Hispanics support the DREAM Act.

The President’s comment was true. To the dismay of Republicans, in an attempt to get something done Obama issued an Executive Order implemented August 14 that allowed thousands of young illegal immigrants under the age of 31 to apply for temporary work permits (no threat of deportation) if they arrived in the US by age 16, are in school or have graduated, are or have been in the military and have no criminal record; it’s expected that 1.5 million people qualify.