GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr Flickr)
On Sunday, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on Al Punto, a Spanish-language TV news show, saying he doesn’t need a different message for Hispanic voters.
Paul said he does not want to remove all 11 million undocumented immigrants, but insisted “we must have secure borders and we must not reward people for breaking the law.”
“I don’t think people should come here and esaily become citizens who can vote and receive social benefits,” Paul said, but he added there must be a program to allow “people who want to work to come.”
Paul said there should an assimilation program, but borders remain important and that citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants should not automatic.
Asked if the tea party is an anti-immigrant party Paul said, “I can’t tell you a thing about it because it is sort of all over the place.”
Diario Las Americas, a Miami-based Spanish-language news outlet, wrote late last week that George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism and Ronald Reagan’s “pragmatism” in immigration have been “buried by the new Republican militancy,” due to tea party pressure. The outlet says Republicans are “risking a defeat in 2012″ over the issue…
Read the rest of the story at The Florida Independent.
