We’ve posted a longer video of Mitt Romney’s answers to immigration questions at yesterday’s Univision forum below. But, first, we were struck by this clip where Romney refers to DREAMers as “illegal aliens” – parroting the language of the anti-immigrant fringe:
Heres’s the full answer on immigration. Romney never really answered the questions on what he would do about the Deferred Action for DREAMers policy:
Here’s the report from Huffington Post’s Elise Foley on the Q and A on immigration:
Romney has refused to say whether he would end Obama’s new deferred action policy that removes the deportation risk faced by some undocumented young people who would be helped by the Dream Act.
Romney was repeatedly pressed to say whether he would end the policy, but only said he doesn’t need to answer because he would fix the issue through legislation. That was no comfort to many immigration advocates, who know the difficulties of passing immigration legislation in Congress.
“Are you going to deport them or not? Yes or no?” Salinas asked Romney, as translated to English by Univision.
“We’re not going to round up people around the country and deport them, that’s not — I said during my primary campaign, time and again, we’re not going to round up 12 million people … and have them deported. Our system isn’t to deport people.”
Salinas pressed on. “That’s your answer, that you’re going to allow them to stay?” she asked.
“I’m not going to be rounding people up and deporting them out of the country, we’re going to put in place a permanent solution,” Romney replied.
So, Romney had the perfect opportunity to clarify his positions, but he didn’t. Apparently, he’s not going to tell us what his “permanent solution” is — nor will he share what he plans to do about DACA.