(Washington Times) Fighting to curry favor with Florida’s large pool of Hispanic voters, Newt Gingrich on Wednesday called for a guest-worker program for most illegal immigrants, but his campaign could not say whether those people would be on a path to citizenship – the key question in the immigration debate.

Under close questioning by Univision’s political host, Jorge Ramos, Mr. Gingrich said he would grant quick citizenship rights to illegal immigrants who join the military or to those who have been in the U.S. between 20 and 25 years. He said the rest of the estimated 11 million should be given access to a guest-worker program.

“With most of them? I would urge them to get a guest-worker permit,” he said, calling for a substantial rewrite of immigration laws that would cancel existing penalties and instead let illegal immigrants stay.

But his campaign said it was unclear whether at the end of that guest-worker period the immigrants would be allowed to stay and gain citizenship, essentially jumping the legal immigration line, or whether they would be required to return home.

On one hand, Gingrich is correct in that he previously said that it is unrealistic to deport every illegal, nor stop them fully from coming, and, yes, we could show some compassion to those who came to this country and attempted to be a part of America and do things like joining the military. It’s not like people didn’t just come to America in the past, without any sort of immigration programs and such. If someone is putting their life on the line to join the military to protect America, perhaps some accommodations could be made.

On the other hand, why pander to Hispanics who can’t vote because they are here illegally? Why pander to Hispanics who are here legally, but still can’t vote because they aren’t citizens? And a good chunk of Hispanics who are legal citizens tend to get a little ticked off when politicians want to give illegals who did it wrong a pathway to citizenship when they themselves followed the onerous and burdensome rules.

Do we want guest workers? Yes, we do. But it is a bad idea to suddenly give people who came to this country illegally guest worker visas after doing the illegal thing with no penalties. Let them leave the country and apply for a worker program that should be expanded. What Gingrich is doing is telling people who are thinking of coming to America illegally to just come on in, no problem, we’ll take care of you. He might want to rethink this line of thought.

(Washington Times) Mitt Romney collected the endorsements Wednesday of the architect of Arizona’s immigration-crackdown law, marking the final step on a journey that has taken him from lukewarm support of legalization to the Republican presidential field’s most ardent opponent of amnesty.

And with Mr. Romney inching closer to wrapping up the GOP’s nomination, it sets up what would be the strongest contrast ever between the two major parties’ candidates on immigration.

“Romney stands head and shoulders above the crowd,” Kris W. Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and the architect of the Arizona law, told The Washington Times, praising Mr. Romney for treading where other Republican candidates have refused to go. “Immigration is one of those issues that will appear to be a hot button — some elected officials who are afraid of offending anyone will avoid taking tough stands on immigration, and he took a tough stand.”

With all due respect, standing head and shoulders above this crowd is not saying much. They all have a mixed record on the subject.

• Newt has been decidedly squishy on deportations (though, he does make sense in the real world: is it truly feasible to deport the 11-20 million illegals, some of whom actually attempt to be a part of the American experience?)
• Ron Paul is against deportation and the border fence, was pro-amnesty prior to the mid-1990’s
• Perry has a mixed record, becomes inarticulate on the campaign trail, signed legislation allowing in-state tuition for illegals, and called people “heartless” for not wanting to give cheap education to illegals.
• Santorum has been pretty strong on immigration, and is probably one of the best left in the race.
• Jon Huntsman has had a mixed bag. He’s said the border fence “repulses him” and vetoed legislation which would end in-state tuition for illegals. He does want to secure the border with manpower, and is heavily in favor of using E-Verify.

Then there is Romney.

• Good: Pro-fence
• Good: Against amnesty
• Good: For increasing legal immigration
• Bad: not a big fan of deportations, would rather illegals apply for legal status
• Good: won’t let illegals applying for legal status jump to front of line
• Good: signed an executive order that would have allowed state police officers to make arrests for immigration violations
• Good: Opposed the 2007 shamnesty bill
• Good: opposes the DREAM Act
• Bad: didn’t shut down the sanctuary cities when he was Governor
• Good: wants States to be more involved in crafting legislation to deal with their own illegal aliens
• Good: Pro use of E-Verify
• Good: against all amnesty legislation

That’s actually a pretty decent record and policy stance. We’ll soon see if this crops up on the trail in South Carolina.

“He has held the line 100 percent on this amnesty stuff,” said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, which grades the candidates on the issue.

Well, not that much. NumbersUSA grades Mitt a C+. Everyone else gets some form of a D, and Ron Paul gets an F, one step up from Obama’s F-.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Fox News Latino) A senior member of the Obama administration said Thursday that the administration plans to change a rule to reduce the time the spouses and children of undocumented immigrants are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States

Currently, undocumented immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.

The official said the new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask the government to decide on the waiver request before the undocumented immigrant heads to his or her home country to apply for a visa. The undocumented immigrants still must go home to finish the visa process to come back to the U.S., but getting the waiver ahead of time could reduce the time an undocumented immigrant is out of the country.

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing “backdoor amnesty” to undocumented immigrants.

It’s not so much Obama showing a clear lack of respect for the People’s House, ie, Congress, as it is 1) Obama attempting to create political issues with which to fight the GOP, and 2), and more importantly, the fact that Obama has never been a real leader, has no skills as a leader, and becomes petulant and therefore unwilling to do the hard work necessary to reach across the aisle and make accommodations with the opposition Party, who represent specific parts of the United States as laid out by the Constitution. Every other president has had to do this, and has worked, or at least attempted to work, with the opposition party. That’s too difficult for Emperor Obama. Funny how he keeps calling himself a “Constitutional Professor”: who’s constitution, Venezuela’s? Iran’s?

That said, if the GOP plays their cards right (sometimes a big “if”), they can use Obama’s unilateral extension of unchecked power grabs against him during the General Election, and perhaps tie it in to the Congressional Democrats. Perhaps some videos of Democrats complaining about Bush unilaterally taking on new powers juxtaposed with Obama actually doing just that.

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(Washington Times) House Republicans are moving to subpoena a list of all immigrants whom the Obama administration has flagged under its secure communities program but failed to arrest for deportation, after the Homeland Security Department missed a congressionally imposed deadline to produce the information this week.

The Obama administration failing to be transparent and provide the requested information? Shocking!

Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said he wants the data so he can see who is among the 300,000 people the administration has deemed too low a priority to detain under new deportation guidelines. He has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday for the immigration subcommittee to vote to authorize the subpoena.

“Why would DHS want to keep this information from the committee?” Mr. Smith will say at the meeting, according to an advance copy of his statement. “If there is nothing to hide, why wouldn’t they provide Congress with these documents? Are administration officials concerned that the requested information will show that illegal and criminal immigrants intentionally released by ICE have gone on to commit more crimes?”

The very fact that an Executive Office department is failing to deport people who are in the United States against the law should, really, be enough to remove those in charge, which, yes, includes Mr. Obama. They are charged with upholding the Constitution and laws of the USA. The oath of office does not give them latitude to pick and choose which laws they will uphold.

While the Homeland Security Department has set records for total deportations, it has shifted its emphasis away from rank-and-file illegal immigrants and toward those with serious criminal records or repeat immigration-law violators. Of the nearly 400,000 people deported in fiscal year 2011, 216,000 had criminal records.

As a result of the shift, though, illegal immigrants who are working or going to school in the U.S. and not running afoul of other criminal laws are under less of a threat of deportation.

You do, in fact, have to give Obama credit for increasing the deportation rates, and, yes, going after the companies that hire them. All very quietly done, so as not to annoy his open borders base. But, illegal is illegal: if Los Federales know where an illegal is, that person should be deported, criminal record or no criminal record. They broke the law.

When is a national park not a national park? When it is “themed” toward one small segment of the population by a government infected with PCism. That is what U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar did when he advocated recently for “Latino” themed national parks and historical landmarks.

One might ask if Salazar is Interior Secretary of the right country with such a suggestion?

To carry through with his penchant for identity politics, Salazar has also pushed the National Parks Service to forget about those evil dead white guys and try to find more places for our historic landmarks that are associated with women and minorities.

Less than 3 percent of all the national landmarks that we have the highest designation you can receive as a historic landmark are designated for women, Latinos, African Americans or other members of minority groups, Salazar said in a meeting with reporters last week. That tells you that the score is not even.

The timing for this story is, of course, suspect. Just when Obama is launching a new campaign for president, here comes his Interior Secretary pandering to Hispanics and minorities.

Imagine that.

So, what is one of the first new minority themed areas Salazar is ballyhooing? A paean to unions with a Cesar Chavez historic landmark.

To continue the left’s efforts to Balkanize the United States, Salazar will preside over the construction of a National Museum of the American Latino. Reports are that the project would cost $600 million. But you know darn well that the final tally will be double that — at least — due to the common waste, cost overruns, union skullduggery, and government failures.

This is just one more example of the left’s desire to separate Americans one from another and to make us hate our collective history and set us against each other.

Herman Cain has moved into a tie with Mitt Romney atop the field of Republican presidential candidates, according to a new CBS News poll, while Rick Perry has fallen 11 percentage points in just two weeks.

The poll shows Cain, who stood at just five percent support two weeks ago, now holding 17 percent support among Republican primary voters. That puts the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO into a tie with Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, whose support has essentially held steady over the past two weeks. Perry, meanwhile, has dropped from 23 percent support to just 12 percent support over the past two weeks, a sign that the Texas governor’s shaky debate performances – in which he has alienated portions of both the Republican base and the party establishment – have taken their toll.

And check out this PPP Poll that has him in the lead in three states. He’s on a roll for sure.

Here are the numbers:
North Carolina: Cain 27, Romney/Gingrich 17, Perry 15, Paul/Bachmann 6, Santorum/Huntsman 2
Nebraska: Cain 30, Gingrich 16, Romney 13, Bachmann/Perry 10, Paul 5, Santorum 4, Huntsman 2
West Virginia: Cain 24, Gingrich 18, Romney 16, Perry 15, Bachmann 8, Paul 6, Santorum 3, Huntsman 1
The thing fueling Cain’s lead in all of these states is strong support from the furthest right segment of the Republican electorate. Cain is at 35% with ‘very conservative’ voters and has a 14 point lead over Perry with them in North Carolina. In Nebraska he’s at 36% with them, putting him up 22 points over Gingrich and Perry. And in West Virginia he gets 25% with them, giving him a 9 point edge on Gingrich and Perry.

We already know he leads in Florida, now these three states, and his home state of Georgia. He also leads in “positive intensity” in Gallups new poll.
Just a roundup to show what standing on principles with a well articulated plan can do for you. Will this trend continue? I gave up predicting politics, but personally I hope so. This candidate shares more in common with my principles than any other viable option right now. And….now Herman Cain rises up to tie for second in the a Washington Post National Poll while Perry falls in support.

After a quick rise in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has experienced an almost equally dramatic decline, losing about half of his support over the past month, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Perry’s slide, which comes after several uneven performances in candidate debates, has allowed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to resurface atop the GOP field. But the most direct beneficiary of the disenchantment with Perry is businessman Herman Cain, who is now tied for second place.

Ed Morrissey:

The big news here is Herman Cain, especially among those to whom he is news. He easily gets the best score among the contestants on the question “the more you hear about X, do you like him/her more or less?” Cain gets at 47/12 on that question, while Romney gets a 38/35 and Perry gets a red-flag 30/44. Christie comes close to Cain in this category at 43/23, but Palin’s closer to Perry at 35/49.
Cain appears to have caught fire, but as we saw with Perry, all that means is that the scrutiny of the media — and the other candidates — will now turn to Cain. We’ll see how well he handles the heat, but another good debate performance might push him into the leading Not-Romney slot in the race.

I agree, the media will get their fangs out soon if Cain’s rise continues, and the heat will increase on Cain in next week’s debates. If he performs good again then the trend will increase as more people start paying attention. The heat will also increase for Romney:

All of this sets things up nicely for next week’s debate at Dartmouth. Perry was in the lead in the last few debates, making him target number one for all of the other candidates. He might get a breather this time around, as Romney is back to frontrunner status and Cain’s rise draws attention. Romney is carrying an awful lot of baggage that has not been explored in any of the previous debates — he’s questionable on gun rights, as governor was weak on sanctuary cities, RomneyCare, his general history of flip-flopping. A campaign of reminding voters that whatever Romney is saying now, he has probably said the exact opposite and it’s all on tape somewhere, could be effective. And, if Chris Christie is in the race, then Romney gets to fight off the nightmare of having another blue state Republican governor crowd his space, bringing his charisma into the battle.

There is also this from Florida:

Cain is now running in second place in Florida now that his support surged nearly 19 percentage points after last month’s Republican Party of Florida’s Presidency 5 debate and straw poll, according to a survey of likely Florida voters conducted by Gainesville-based War Room Logistics, which typically polls for Republicans.
Meantime, Perry’s support plummeted nearly 16 percentage points.
Perry had been tied as a Florida frontrunner with Mitt Romney at about 25 percent on Sept. 20, dropped to third/fourth place with 9 percent of the vote where he’s statistically tied with Newt Gingrich (10 percent).

Tougher than Arizona’s, Alabama’s new immigration law is a perfect example of the best way to put limits on illegal immigration. Sadly these are laws being forced upon the states to implement instead of coming from the federal government, but regardless they are effective in limiting illegals.

The Mobile Press-Register has a story sort of crying that Mexican oriented businesses in Alabama are suffering under the state’s new laws. These businesses have lost half — or perhaps as much as 75% in some estimations — of their customer base. Where have they gone? These customers are either moving back to Mexico or to other states and are doing so to avoid the tougher laws holding them to account in Alabama for their criminal trespass upon this country.

The Press-Register provides the stories of several businesses started in Alabama by Mexicans catering to Mexican immigrants. The businesses are on the verge of collapse because their illegal immigrant clientele have left the area.

Local illegals are fleeing in greater numbers lately, too, because last week a federal judge upheld Alabama’s new laws.

The story also highlighted a major cultural problem. Not a Mexican cultural problem, but an American one. It seems that some of these flailing businesses are expecting Obama to help them out.

Margarita Iniguez, who speaks little English, asked through her daughter whether the federal government would help businesses like hers.

Notice the problem, here? It is assumed that Obama is willing to help illegals that don’t speak English instead of Americans.

But the success here is that the tougher laws are causing these illegals to flee. Some went back to Mexico — a good thing — but others just moved to a state with more lax laws — something that should be rectified. The lesson here is, make the laws tougher and the illegals will leave. If immigration laws in every state and the federal government went this direction, we’d have a far less troublesome situation with illegal immigration.

If our laws were duly enforced, only those seriously interested in becoming real Americans would come here and brave the laws.

Now, am I gleeful to see businesses go under? Not at all. However, if these people are good businessmen they will thrive by changing their focus.

Let’s face it, government has no role in making sure businesses survive a changing clientele or an evolving market. If these businesses lose their illegal customer base, then it’s adapt or die off. And that is how it should be. Government has no role to make sure these increasingly unnecessary businesses stay in business. It’s the way the market works.

It’s that well known concept of “creative destruction” in the flesh in Alabama. On top of that, it’s a perfect example of how to put the breaks on illegal immigration. What’s not to like?

(Newsmax) Presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday apologized for saying that anyone who opposed giving tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants “did not have a heart.”

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, the Texas governor said he had made a poor choice of words during the Sept. 22 presidential debate, but he stood by his view that the decision in his state to extend tuition breaks was the right one.

“I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” Perry admitted. “In Texas in 2001 we had 181 members of the legislature – only four voted against this piece of legislation – because it wasn’t about immigration it was about education.”

So, he’s “sorry” for calling all you folks who think that people who come to this country illegally should be deported, regardless of age, and shouldn’t have public money spent on them, shouldn’t be given easy breaks for in-state tuition, and shouldn’t take up spaces in colleges that could be filled by, you know, American citizens, “heartless”. But, he still thinks he’s right and you’re wrong, it’s just that he used the wrong word to describe you heartless SOBs.

The rest of the interview was pretty good, you can read it and watch the video over at Newsmax, but, people will still remember the “heartless” comment. Call me crazy, but, Perry pulled a Democrat gaffe, which is when a Democrat tells the truth and says what they really think. And you can expect Perry’s GOP opponents to hammer him during the next few debates for that comment, and put him on the spot regarding his belief that we should educate the kids of illegals, and give them a pathway to citizenship. Said pathway always seems to mean that we won’t deport the parents, because that would be “mean”, and separate the kids from their parents.

Perry wasn’t really sorry, except for getting caught saying what he really thinks.

Meanwhile, a federal judge upheld key parts of the Alabama illegal immigration law, including the provision to check the immigration status of students.

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Rick Perry went out on a limb Thursday by refusing to back off his support as Texas governor for granting in-state tuition to some of the children of illegal immigrants, and painting critics of the law as heartless — remarks that landed him in the crosshairs of his GOP rivals.

The three-term Texas governor said he still supports the program “greatly” and that the Lone Star State needs “to be educating these children because otherwise they’ll “become a drag on society.”

“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Mr. Perry said.

I guess I’m heartless. Of course, this isn’t about heart: it’s about The Law. The intention of the Founders, the fuddy duddy old powder wig wearing men of yesteryear, was to create a nation of Law, not a nation of Men. And as soon as we start thinking strictly with our heart strings, reason and law go out the window.

Sure, the kids of illegals aren’t at fault for being brought to the United States by their law breaking parents. That doesn’t mean we are responsible for educating them, and especially not giving them in-state tuition. In most states, including Texas, it is damned hard to get in-state tuition of you came from another state. A college kid would need to change their residence and pay for the college all on their own without help from someone outside the state in order to be even considered for in-state tuition (which is subsidized by the taxpayer).

The stance also put Mr. Perry at odds with a chunk of the audience, which booed, and opened him up to attacks from the Republican field, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who said the law carries an annual price tag of $22,000 per student and acts as a magnet for illegal immigrants.

“If you’re a United States citizen from any one of the other 49 states, you have to pay $100,000 more,” Mr. Romney said, alluding to the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at the University of Texas over four years. “That doesn’t make sense to me. That kind of magnet draws people into this country to get that education, to get the $100,000 break. It makes no sense.”

And that kind of stance concerns me in that Perry could be in favor of passing some sort of DREAM Act legislation, giving the children of illegals a quick pathway to citizenship while subsidizing their lives. And a DREAM Act would also mean that we’d use our hearts to say “well, the kid is trying to be a citizen: it’d be mean to deport their families.” It’s a dangerous road which uses emotion over law, and changes/creates law with emotion.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Mitt Romney opened his town hall meeting here talking about the economy — his thoughts on growing business, getting government out of the way — just as he does nearly every other campaign event. But when he opened last week’s forum for questions, the first voter he called on didn’t seem concerned about any of that. He wanted to know the Republican presidential candidate’s stance on border security.

A similar scene played out in South Carolina a few days later, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) attended a town hall meeting she assumed would center on the economy, jobs and the federal deficit — only to see the assembled voters react most passionately to her comments on illegal immigration.

Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape.

Well, true. GOP voters can actually focus on and discuss more than one issue. In case the Washington Post missed it, liberals will have the same demands of Obama, as the liberal interest groups go after him along the lines of gay issues, how Obama can give them Someone Else’s money, and how Obama can legalize illegal aliens.

Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP’s presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test.

“Immigration is not even close to the top issue for most Republicans today, but it is an issue that is heavy with symbolic importance to Republican voters,” said GOP pollster Jon Lerner, who advised Tim Pawlenty until he dropped out of the race last month. “If a candidate is squishy on immigration, that symbolically suggests that he’s probably unreliable on a whole host of other conservative issues.”

Well, yeah. It is very much a core issue with a lot of Republican voters, who want to know if a future POTUS is going to uphold the rule of law and not go down any sort of amnesty/legalization/comprehensive immigration reform route.

The view in the Republican Party on immigration has shifted dramatically to the right since 2006, when President George W. Bush proposed an overhaul that would have combined a legalization plan with tighter border security.

No, it has not. Most Republicans were livid that President Bush was pushing any sort of legalization program, and mad at other elected officials, like John McCain and Lindsay Graham, who were involved with pushing “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Anyhow, the article goes on to describe the positions of Perry, Romney, and Bachmann. Romney wants to secure the border before dealing with any sort of “comprehensive reform”, along with cracking down on employers. Bachmann simply wants to secure the border from illegals, drugs, and terrorists. Perry has a much longer record, which Ann Coulter thinks is a bit too much like Bush’s. Squishy.

You can’t blame Conservatives for asking about immigration stances: there’s a long way to go till we have a candidate to officially run against Barack Obama, and it can’t all be about the economy. We need to vet our candidate hopefuls on a variety of issues. Real ones, not hope and change.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.