Romney and immigration

These comments from Mitt Romney is really something else. He criticizes Barack Obama for failing to pass immigration reform while having Democratic control of Congress, which is an entirely fair criticism. The wee problem, though, is that Romney is dead set against immigration reform and so wouldn't have even bothered pretending to try.

“This has always been a priority for the president he chooses to do nothing about,” Romney said. “Let the immigrant community not forget that while he uses this as a political weapon, he has not taken responsibility for fixing the problems we have.”

So that argument won't take Romney too far. Then he slips straight into the rabbit hole by saying we need to we make it too hard for immigrants with skills we need to get into the country while also saying we need to stop illegal immigration. The uncomfortable truth, so to speak, is that those are the workers we need. The idea that we only need high skilled workers is fantasy.

“My own view is our immigration policies are upside down,” he continued. “We make it very hard for people who have skills that we need — education and English-speaking and workplace skills — make it very hard for those people to come here and to stay here. On the other hand, those that don’t have any of those things are often times able to come either across the border or over-stay their visas and remain in this country indefinitely. So we’ve got it backwards.”

I guess he does not think that a farm, construction site, hotel, etc. represent "workplaces."

In all, these arguments aren't going to do anything for him, good or bad. His views on immigration are well known, and voters will not be thinking much about them when it comes time to choose.