Mitt Romney and Rick Perry got into a heated exchange during Tuesday’s Republican debate in Las Vegas over the issue of immigration, with Perry accusing Romney of hiring illegal immigrants.
“Mitt, you lose all of your standing from my perspective because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year,” Perry said. “And the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.”
A red-faced Romney didn’t take a liking to that, and even reached out to put his arm on Perry. Here’s how he explained his immigration issue:
“So we went to the company and we said, look, you can’t have any illegals working on our property. I’m running for office, for pete’s sake, we can’t have illegals. Turns out that once question they hired someone who had falsified their documents and therefore we fired them.
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Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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