Candidate Comparison: Immigration

This is the seventh in a series of posts about where the six front running presidential candidates stand on the issues. The information is from the Pew Forum. Previous posts were on Abortion, the Iraq War, Gay Marriage, Poverty, Education and The Death Penalty.

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Hillary Clinton
Clinton supports comprehensive immigration reform based on strengthening America's borders and implementing new enforcement laws. She advocates providing a path to legal status for undocumented workers already in the U.S. She used the Bible to criticize a Republican plan to make it a federal crime to offer aid to illegal immigrants, saying the proposed policy "is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scripture because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself."

John Edwards
Edwards supports increased border security and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. He says that immigration reform is central to alleviating poverty in the United States and that domestic policy goals like raising the minimum wage are connected to immigration reform because illegal immigrants make up a "sizeable chunk" of impoverished Americans.

Rudolph Giuliani
Giuliani supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes a process to "regularize" undocumented immigrants, but insists that he does not believe in amnesty. He also says reforms should strengthen border security and require immigrants to learn English. As mayor, he emphasized the positive contributions of immigrants and called federal immigration laws "harsh and unfair." He also barred New York City employees from reporting illegal immigrants seeking government assistance.

John McCain
McCain supports comprehensive immigration reform that addresses border security and what he calls the economy's need for immigrant labor. McCain and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) twice co-sponsored a comprehensive reform bill that would double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol. The bill also calls for a border fence, a crackdown on employers who hire undocumented immigrants, a "path to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants and a "guest worker" program offering temporary visas.

Barack Obama
Obama supports immigration reform that strengthens border security while creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country. He has been a proponent of guest worker programs that first offer available jobs to American workers. Obama has said that he will "not support any bill that does not provide [an] earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population."

W. Mitt Romney
Romney opposes amnesty for undocumented workers, favors securing the U.S.-Mexico border with a fence and wants to institute an employment verification system through high-tech identification cards. While Massachusetts governor, Romney vetoed a bill that called for lower tuition rates for the children of undocumented immigrants. He "reached an agreement with federal authorities" to give state troopers the power to arrest immigrants who are in the state illegally.

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It appears that all candidates support immigration reform of some sort but differ on the means of the reform and on the topic of amnesty for resident illegal aliens. It seems to me that, with all of this reform rhetoric being spouted, we should have had some reform legislation enacted by now.