Mitt Romney just addressed the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Orlando, and in tandem with the speech, his campaign released what they’re calling a “strategy for bipartisan immigration reform.” The campaign sought to erase lingering doubts about his response to the Obama Administration’s deferred action order for DREAM-eligible undocumented immigrants. And I’m not sure they’ve done that.
Here’s the basic framework of the plan:
• Encourage high-skill immigrants: Romney wants to raise the country caps for legal immigrants, particularly “high-skill” immigrants, which is undefined. He does say that “Every foreign student who obtains an advanced degree in math, science, or engineering at a U.S. university should be granted permanent residency.” (It’s also the case, by the way, that so-called “low-skill immigrants” would boost the economy significantly were they allowed in the country as well.)
• Fix the temporary worker visa system: This is all about ensuring a smoother process for employers to hire temporary agricultural or non-agricultural guest workers. It says nothing about the clear exploitation of those guest workers, as we’ve seen in the recent Wal-Mart supplier case. Because supplying cheap and exploitable labor is of course the point.
• Secure the borders. Yadda yadda yadda. The borders are secure to the extent that we’re seeing a net outflow of undocumented immigrants. But Romney vows to build a “high-tech fence” across the southern border, boost Border Patrol agents and develop E-Verify. For the 40%-plus of undocumented immigrants who enter the country legally and overstay their visas, Romney plans to “develop an efficient, effective system of exit verification to ensure people do not overstay their visas,” which sounds completely impossible to me.
• Families of legal residents. Romney proposes “eliminating red tape” that results in the separation of families. He wants legal permanent residents to be able to bring their non-resident spouses and children into the US, with a green card.
• Military DREAM. “Mitt Romney believes that young illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children should have the chance to become permanent residents, and eventually citizens, by serving honorably in the United States military.” So no DREAM Act for students, you have to become cannon fodder.
In the speech, Romney did not address whether or not he would reverse the Obama Administration’s deferred action order for DREAMers. He’s been extremely cagey on that point. As many as 1.4 million young people could be affected by the deferred action order. Romney only said he would “replace and supersede” the Administration’s measure.
But the plan is written above. Except for those DREAMers who join the military, there’s no real clarity there for them. If they don’t have a parent who is a legal resident, they’re out of luck. They would be subject to the possibility of deportation every day. Moreover, there’s no suggestion about what to do with the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the country.
And it goes without saying that in the recent past, Romney said he would veto the DREAM Act, and that immigrants would “self-deport” because of the hardships his Administration would put on them.
I haven’t seen much reaction to this speech yet. I’d be particularly interested in some of the reaction from Republicans, particularly those prone to yelling “amnesty” at the slightest hint of any softness on immigration. Not that this plan should be seen as anything resembling softness.




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Well, some GOP notables have occasionally offered some sly support for reform before.
They are always comfy, however, knowing Mrs Grundy will not allow it.
Shorter Romney:
1) Give IT corporations what they want by allowing them to displace American engineering and science workers with more cheaper H1B foreign workers.
2) Give agriculture and food corporations what they want in the form of cheap, disposable, low-skilled foreign workers with few rights.
3) Encourage more poor people to join the military.
4) Pander to the racist xenophobes by pretending that the border can be “secured” once corporate-sought workers are brought in officially.
They do not want to lose their gardener, pool man or the help at the house in La Jolla.
Dude, you are on a roll today!
One of the more amusing things of the 1996 San Diego Republican National Convention was seeing the speakers rant about illegal immigration in a city that would collapse into ruin without undocumented workers.
The Republican worthies ranted about “illegal immigrants” in a facility that was cleaned by undocumented workers, ate their meals in restaurants staffed by undocumented workers, and slept on hotel beds whose sheets were washed and then put onto the beds by undocumented workers.
Join the military, get a green card.
Ain’t that bribery??????
I thought was the ultimate in irony too. One has to admire that type naivete.
Funny, the GOP didn’t seem to catch that.
And lest us not forget this convention is in Florida.
Just gotta chuckle.
Die for your country, get a green card.
Need to work the bugs out of that one.
Shorter Democrats: What Romney said! Only we’ll dress it up as “progressive”!
Plus that nanny from Guatemala, she has a hot caboose! Exactly.
Been wondering for some time now how the vacationers in such slums as Nantucket, Newport and other 1%-er locations are doing with finding the nannies, cooks, pool people and gardeners this season.
Instead of ‘good help is so hard to find’, I’m guessing the line this season is ‘ANY help is so hard to find’.
So, what is his plan?
It pains me to see this is the kind of moronic choice we will have to elect our president. It is surprising that a guy with top notch education form a top notch business college, does not even know what the plan means let alone writing or stating it.
Those immigrant school/college kids he wants to screw, perhaps, can write a clear plan and pass the exam too. Shame on us for putting up with corrupt political system that will put bums like Romney in-charge of determining future of our country.
For a bunch of people who disdain the efette’ french they sure did steal the idea of having foreign nationals fight wars for citizenship pretty well.
How about this. Marco Rubio admitted to Andrea Mitchell, earlier this afternoon, that he lied in his book about his family’s reason for leaving Cuba. It wasn’t about Castro at all. They came here for economic reasons.
Sorry, no VP for you!
The Main Stream Media should be all over this in 3, 2, 1…
Wow. Without Marco, the herd is pretty thin. Lots of bad choices. Not very many good ones.
And the NALEO response to his bullshit was/is?