Obama on Immigration

President Obama’s response to Romney’s answer of Question #7 in the October 16, 2012 debate was - agreeing that we are a nation of immigrants but we’re also a nation of laws; he’s made it easier and cheaper for people to come here, he’s strengthened the border patrol so that the flow of illegal immigrants has been lower, he goes after criminals not students and others that aren’t hurting us and he’s given a pathway. He said that during the campaign Romney said he would veto the Dream Act that would allow them to have access, he’d encourage self deportation and called the Arizona law a model for the nation; what Romney said about him not trying to fix the system is not true. Obama went over the 2 minutes and Candy Crowley, the moderator, said she wanted Romney to speak to self deportation.

Romney began his response by clarifying that he supported a portion, not the whole Arizona law, and repeated Obama did not pass a law as he said he would. He said he’s not going to round up 12 million people and take them out of the nation -they’d make their own choice but he’s in favor of deporting criminals. Out of nowhere he went back to what Obama said about Chinese investments in question #5. The President tried objecting but Candy said he could if he made it short. Romney then said his investments have been managed by a blind trust and then he tried to goad the President into acknowledging that his pension also has investments outside the US. Candy tried stopping this by saying they were over the time allotted and Obama pointed out they were off topic.

The President continued with he wanted to make sure that people knew that Romney’s top immigration advisor designed the whole Arizona law; that we should encourage immigration and that he can deliver legislation (Romney jumped up and Candy asked him to sit down); Obama said it used to be a bipartisan issue but the Republicans won’t deliver.

If you read my previous blog you’d know that what Romney is proposing has been done but needs to be tweaked and Congress hasn’t done a thing since 2001 and because of this the Supreme Court has had to address self deportation. Romney if he knew the Constitution and/or our laws would also know that the issuance of driver licenses is up to the states and not the federal government. Also, what the heck – he jumps in and comments on something asked 2 questions ago. On May 4, 2012 it was reported that a survey found 1 in 3 Americans would fail the citizenship test - I’m starting to wonder if Romney is one of those failures. In looking at the original question – Romney never answered it.