Rick Santorum said Sunday that his candidate Mitt Romney is trying to strike a delicate balance on immigration in order to avoid alienating Hispanics.
“No, he’s trying to walk the line. And look, I understand that,” Santorum said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He’s trying to walk the line so as not to sound like he’s hostile to Latinos — and swing [voters] in very important states.”
Staking out policy positions on the basis of raw political calculus is common for candidates. But the willingness of Santorum — a Romney surrogate, albeit a reluctant one — to openly concede that is noteworthy as campaigns rarely, if ever, publicly admit that they temper their issue stances on the basis of political considerations.
Santorum was responding to Romney’s hedge on President Obama’s decision Friday not to deport some young undocumented immigrants and grant them temporary legal status if they attain higher education or serve in the military.
“I believe the status of young people who come here through no fault of their own is an important matter to be considered and should be solved on a long-term basis, so they know what their future would be in this country,” Romney said after Obama’s announcement. “I think the action that the president took today makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution because an executive order is, of course, just a short-term matter - it can be reversed by subsequent presidents. I’d like to see legislation that deals with this issue. … If I’m president, we’ll do our very best to have that kind of long-term solution that provides certainty and clarity for the people who come into this country through no fault of their own by virtue of the action of their parents.”
The remarks were a marked shift from Romney’s call for “self-deportation” of the same immigrants during the primary, when the goal was to appease immigration-weary conservatives. Now, he’s seeking to appeal to a broader electorate, particularly Hispanic voters, who constitute a fast-growing share of the voting populace.
Santorum counseled Romney to focus on the procedural aspect of Obama’s decision and “hammer the president on this now habitual abuse of power.”
“The most outrageous thing was the process in which he did it,” he said. “The president basically said, ‘I’m going to selectively enforce the law in this country.’”
The former presidential candidate criticized unnamed members of his party on the issue.
“I am very pro-immigration. I don’t like a lot of the rhetoric and tone I hear from some on our side with respect to immigrants and even the issue of illegal immigration,” Santorum added. “Having said that, it is illegal.”
Sahil Kapur
Sahil Kapur is a congressional reporter for TPM. He previously covered politics and public policy for numerous publications including The Guardian and The Huffington Post. He can be reached at sahil [at] talkingpointsmemo.com.
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