By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

The leading contender for the Republican nomination in the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign is opposing an immigration panel’s recommendations that the state extend licenses to drivers regardless of their immigration status and allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.

Former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, however, was careful in his statements last weekend at a Parsippany town hall not to dish out the hardline rhetoric that has come to be expected from Republican candidates on the issue of immigration. Such rhetoric did not work well for them in last year’s elections, when most hardline candidates for Congress lost their races.

Christie said he was opposed to the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Immigration Policy, appointed by Gov. Jon Corzine in 2007, and whose report sparked a heated debate a couple of weeks ago. The Parsippany audience applauded his remarks warmly, New York newspaper El Diario/La Prensa reported Tuesday.

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