Now that Rick Santorum has, unexpectedly, emerged (for the moment, at least) as a serious challenger to Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination, it may be worth taking a look at his record to see if there is any difference between him and Romney on immigration. The answer is: very little. Moreover, what little difference exists is not in the right direction, based on Santorum's campaign speeches and television interviews.
Both Romney and Santorum have taken the extreme right wing hard line on illegal immigration. Romney, of course, has been endorsed by the unspeakable Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, who has arguably done more than anyone else in America to try to put a legal face on anti-immigrant bigotry.
Both presidential candidates are against any form of "amnesty" or legal status for unauthorized immigrants. Both have come out in favor of the border fence, local enforcement of immigration laws and, at least in Santorum's case, making English the national language (a proposal aimed against legal immigrants and minority US citizens as much as against unauthorized immigrants).
Both have hedged, slightly, on the question whether they would actively seek to deport every one of the estimated 11 million people currently in the US without legal permission. Santorum has vaguely suggested that there might be other ways of "dealing" with them. Romney, with his highly developed instinct for picking the wrong phrase on almost any issue, has suggested "self-deportation".
Not much difference here, so far. But Romney has consistently claimed that he strongly supports legal immigration. While Santorum has also repeated this mantra, there has been an important exception. In a speech leading up to the South Carolina primary, Santorum said that he had problems with "lotteries" and "chain migration". Both are nothing but transparent code words for legal immigration by non-whites.
Therefore, Santorum may be trying even harder than Romney to press all the racial buttons in an attempt to gain working class white votes. The fact that both candidates are working furiously to antagonize Latino US citizens and hand this fastest growing segment of America's population over to the Democrats on a silver platter does not seem to matter to the Republicans. Rigid adherence to bigotry and white supremacy may be the only thing more important to the Republican party than winning elections.
However, speculating on Santorum's immigration views may be relevant to this election for only a short time more - until Romney's billionaire campaign contributors use their Super-Pac money to blast Santorum out of the water, just as they did with Newt Gingrich. If this happens, it will not be any great loss for immigration supporters.
Source: http://blogs.ilw.com/immigrationlawblogs/2012/02/bloggings-santorum-vs-romney-on-immigration-is-there-a-difference-by-roger-algase.html
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