The thoughtful Americans at the Center for Immigration Studies have one of the more observant (and yet so disappointing) insights into the feckless electoral campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry:
The heated exchange between Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry over the issue of in-state college tuition for illegal aliens illustrates how different candidates might approach a policy problem for which there's no easy answer. Where they come down on this issue shows whether a candidate is able to make tough but right decisions that best serve the national interest.
Rick Perry has been defending Texas's DREAM Act Amnesty Lite.
At the September 22 Florida debate, Texas Gov.Perry defended his support for a Texas law giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens.
"If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart," Perry said. "I still support it greatly."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney replied, "I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean you don't have a heart, it means you have a heart and a brain."
Perry's snarky soundbite reveals a lot about him. Some 32,000 illegal aliens already received taxpayer subsidies of $40,000 or more for a Texas undergraduate degree course, in place of lawfully resident Texans, citizens and legal immigrants alike. So why does he come down on the side of lawbreaking illegals, and against lawful state residents?
Emotion. Perry lets his heartstrings be his guide. He feels sorry for illegal aliens who purportedly were brought to this country as minors. Those matters of fact are hardly proven in each case, but Perry substitutes his sympathetic urges for the sort of toughness of thought and steely reasoning necessary to serving as the leader of the free world.
That's not good enough. Candidates who can't resist putting their personal feelings ahead of clearer, though tougher reasoning and allegiance to the requirements of justice are unfit to hold office. In-state tuition for illegals encourages and rewards more illegal immigration. It misallocates limited public resources, which the public has entrusted to officials. It cheats legal residents.
There's also Perry's zinger. Perry derides those who oppose in-state tuition for illegal kids as “heartless.” Such a charge as Perry leveled Thursday, whether against his political opponents or voters, reeks. It is beneath a serious candidate, expected from ethnic or racial identity politicians, but not legitimate contenders.
Perry's position on what amounts to amnesty and a taxpayer-funded invitation to illegal aliens to stay in Texas is backfiring. He's also finding out that just talking tough on "border security" doesn't cut it. Voters should note the troubling similarity between Perry's and George W. Bush's views on immigration issues. Pro-amnesty, open-borders politicians like McCain, Obama, and Bush have poisoned the well for other pro-amnesty, open-borders politicians.
Opposition to DREAM Act-type pandering isn't fundamentally a conservative position. It's more a matter of having higher regard for America and national sovereignty and citizenship than for internationalism and globalist allegiance. A candidate who can apply right reason, arrive at the right conclusion, and has the backbone to follow through to tell foreigners where the boundaries are needs to have– as Romney underlined-- both a brain and a heart.
Adapted--with liberties taken--from an article by James R. Edwards Jr. He blogs at cis.org. Read the complete original article online at the Center for Immigration Studies website: http://cis.org/edwards/GOP-politics-of-in-state-tuition .
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