Tom Tancredo
Opinion Contributor
Politico
8/11/2011
On Saturday Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce whether or not he will run for president. Many now believe he will.
Perry is eager to separate himself from his predecessor in the Texas governor’s mansion, George W. Bush — who is unpopular with both tea party Republicans and the American electorate as a whole. But one area where Perry’s positions are virtually identical to Bush is immigration.
When I ran for president in 2008, I tried to pressure the Republican candidates to take a hard line against illegal immigration. For this, Perry called me a racist.
When he first took office as governor in 2001, Perry went to Mexico and bragged about his law that granted “the children of undocumented workers” special in-state tuition at Texas colleges, the first state in the nation to do so.
“The message is simple,” Perry concluded, “educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.” Education is the future, and (echoing Cesar Chavez’s slogan) yes we can.
Just a few weeks ago, Perry defended his decision to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. He said “to punish these young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about.”
Perry opposed Arizona’s tough anti-illegal immigration law SB 1070. “I have concerns,” he explained, “with portions of the law passed in Arizona and believe it would not be the right direction for Texas.”
This op-ed continues at Politico.
H/T The Huffington Post:
…A 2006 state report said that the state’s undocumented immigrants – 1.4 million then, 1.65 million now – added $17.7 billion to the gross state product, and that the state came out ahead on taxes it collected versus services it provided. But local governments and county hospitals were shouldering the burden of caring for that population.
The Texas Association of Business, which has backed Perry in all his gubernatorial campaigns and has members who individually have provided Perry with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash, touted that report in its firm support of comprehensive immigration reform. TAB, the state’s chamber of commerce, has lobbied for immigration reform and against state legislation regulating immigration.
“The economy would suffer without undocumented workers,” said Bill Hammond, TAB president and CEO. “We need them.”
Texas remains welcoming to immigrants in ways some other states are not…
…If Perry becomes president, Texas undocumented immigration opponents say, conservative voters shouldn’t expect tough leadership on the issue.
JoAnn Fleming, chairwoman of the Tea Party Caucus advisory committee to the Texas Legislature, said, “We have a little bit of trouble imagining that our governor could do that on the national level.”
Update: CAJ note: Gov. Rick Perry has a lot of qualities we admire and Texas is our spiritual home. But before America “falls in love” with another presidential candidate, let’s do our homework:
WikiLeaks’ Evidence of North American Union, April 28, 2011; NAU-01
GOP Globalism: Grover Norquist Awaits Rick Perry’s Presidential Candidacy
Here is our list of Rick Perry articles, praising and damning him.
