It was delayed so long perhaps it is fitting than when immigration finally came up in the presidential debates, it came in a back door.
One of the undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization to ask questions at the candidates’ epic confrontation at Hofstra University Tuesday night, a Long Island woman named Susan Katz, asked Gov. Mitt Romney, “How do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?”
The Republican contender then clicked off how he is different than the 43rd president, but never mentioned immigration.
President Obama did, breaking the ice on the issue when he said of the differences between the governor and the former president, “George Bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. He didn’t call for self-deportation.”
Self-deportation gives me the chills; the whole idea that as a nation we would strive to create an environment so hostile and unpleasant for undocumented immigrants that they would flee the country seems so, well, un-American.
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Of all Gov. Romney’s harsh anti-immigration rhetoric during the campaign, including his embrace of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s SB1070, as his adviser on the issue, that notion of self-deportation is the most troubling.
During the debate, it wasn’t until a fellow named Michael Jones spoke woefully of the disappearance of optimism under the Obama administration that Governor Romney circled back to immigration.
He included it in his list of presidential promises not kept by Mr. Obama during his first term, pointing to the President sitting just a few feet away: “He said in his first year he’d put out an immigration plan that would deal with our immigration challenge. Didn’t even file it.” Read the full article on FOX NEWS Latino.
