Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee now that Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race, and Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) name has frequently been mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for Romney to help him win over Hispanic voters.
But if Romney chose Rubio as his vice president and won, what would a Romney-Rubio administration set for its immigration policy? Nothing that would help fix the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, according to a new analysis by the Center for American Progress, based on their existing polices:
A Romney-Rubio administration would advance the following counterproductive legislative priorities:
-Make E-Verify, the nation’s flawed internet-based work-authorization system, mandatory for all employers in the hope that undocumented immigrants will self-deport
-Pursue a “DREAM-less” DREAM Act, which would grant legal status but no path to earn citizenship for unauthorized immigrants who were brought here at a young age
We can also be certain that a Romney-Rubio administration would adopt the following regressive administrative priorities:
–Support for states seeking to pass anti-immigrant laws like Arizona’s S.B. 1070
-Implementation of a comprehensive “self-deportation” strategy for undocumented immigrants in which the government would make life as miserable as possible to try to force undocumented immigrants to leave the country on their own
-Elimination of prosecutorial discretion that helps enforcement agents prioritize serious criminals over nannies and busboys
–Construction of another 1,400 miles of border fencing despite the exorbitant cost
“Voters should ask themselves whether they want to support a potential administration with immigration positions far more extreme than their own,” the reports’ authors write.
Romney has tried to woo Hispanic voters in his campaign, even winning a majority of the demographic in the Florida GOP primary. But his extreme immigration stances have also alienated Hispanic voters. A recent poll showed that President Obama is leading Romney among Hispanic voters 70 to 14 percent. Judging from the policies that could be expected, Romney may need more than Rubio as a potential vice president to win over the fastest-growing segment of the population.