Campaign Statements — Immigration

Saturday December 10, 2011

“No favoritism…for those that have come here illegally.”

“I do not want to do something which encourages another wave of illegal immigration. So, from my view—viewpoint, the key—the key measure is this: No favoritism for permanent residency or citizenship for those that have come here illegally.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Mitt Romney |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“Settle their affairs and then return home and get in line at the back of the line.”

“Secure the border. Once we do that, we can start talking about the 11 million or whatever number that may be that are in the country illegally. My own view is those 11—11 million people should register the fact that they’re here in the country. They should be given some transition period of time to allow them to—settle their affairs and then return home and get in the—in line at the back of the line with everybody else that wants to come here.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Mitt Romney |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“They get residency. And the pay a penalty in order to get residency.”

“Well, I—that’s why you have the citizen review panel. The per—the person has to have been here 25 years, have genuine ties to the community, be a good citizen, and have an American family sponsor them. And they still don’t get citizenship. This is not amnesty. They get residency. And they pay a penalty in order to get residency. “

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Newt Gingrich |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“We should make deportation dramatically easier.”

“I think most of the workers who are here who have no ties to us should go home immediately. I think we should make deportation dramatically easier. This is, I think frankly we oughta make English the official language of government. And we oughta have an effective guest worker program with very severe penalties for those employers who hire people illegally.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Newt Gingrich |

Tuesday November 22, 2011

“We want those brains in our country.”

“We want those brains in our country. But in order to bring people in legally we’ve got to stop illegal immigration. That means turning off the magnets of amnesty, in-state tuition for illegal aliens, employers that knowingly hire people that have come here illegally.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Mitt Romney |

Tuesday November 22, 2011

“That will only encourage more people to do the same thing.”

“But to say that we’re going to say to the people who have come here illegally that now you’re all going to get to stay or some large number are going to get to stay and become permanent residents of the United States, that will only encourage more people to do the same thing.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Mitt Romney |

Tuesday November 22, 2011

“If you’ve come here recently, you have no ties to this country, you ought to go home.”

“I did vote for the Simpson-Mazzoli Act. Ronald Reagan, in his diary, says he signed it—and we were supposed to have 300,000 people get amnesty. There were 3 million. But he signed it because we were going to get two things in return. We were going to get control of the border and we were going to get a guest worker program with employer enforcement. We got neither. So I think you’ve got to deal with this as a comprehensive approach that starts with controlling the border, as the governor said. I believe ultimately you have to find some system—once you’ve put every piece in place, which includes the guest worker program, you need something like a World War II Selective Service Board that, frankly, reviews the people who are here.

If you’re here—if you’ve come here recently, you have no ties to this country, you ought to go home. Period. If you’ve been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you’ve been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.

The Creeble Foundation is a very good red card program that says you get to be legal, but you don’t get a pass to citizenship. And so there’s a way to ultimately end up with a country where there’s no more illegality, but you haven’t automatically given amnesty to anyone.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Newt Gingrich |

Sunday November 13, 2011

“...talk about the importance of having English as the official language of this country.”

“What Gov. Perry’s done is he provided in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Maybe that was an attempt to attract the illegal vote—I mean, the Latino voters. But you attract Latino voters by talking about the importance of immigration. You talk about the importance of having English as the official language of this country.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Rick Santorum |

Sunday November 13, 2011

“I believe we need more fence.”

“I’m the son of an Italian immigrant. I believe in immigration, as an important part of the lifeblood of this country. But what we have is a problem of an unsecure border. Unlike Gov. Perry, I believe we need to build more fence. I believe that we need to secure the border using technology and more personnel. And until we build that border, we should neither have storm troopers come in and throw people out of the country nor should we provide amnesty.”

CATEGORIES: Immigration | Rick Santorum |