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At Debate, Romney Again Uses Anti-immigrant Slur While Referring to Undocumented Immigrants

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Last night, Mitt Romney once again showed his true colors on immigration. One particularly noticeable example is Romney’s use of the slur “illegals” during his riff on self-deportation:

Now, let me mention one other thing, and that is self-deportation says let people make their own choice. What I was saying is, we’re not going to round up 12 million people, undocumented illegals, and take them out of the nation. Instead let people make their own choice. And if they — if they find that — that they can’t get the benefits here that they want and they can’t — and they can’t find the job they want, then they’ll make a decision to go a place where — where they have better opportunities.

That’s right out of the extremist anti-immigrant playbook, meant to dehumanize the undocumented. It wasn’t a mistake. Romney used that same language while referring to DREAMers during his Univision interview with Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas.

Our Executive Director, Frank Sharry, tweeted that he’s never heard a nominee use that term — and it makes Romney the most anti-immigrant candidate in recent history:

It’s what one would expect from a candidate whose immigration advisor is Kris Kobach.

The use of that term was picked up by a lot of others. Here’s some of the twitter reaction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a standard part of Romney’s immigration riff: