Scott Walker Reportedly Switches Positions on Immigration… Again
According to three sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, presidential contender Scott Walker said that he backed a pathway to citizenship at a private dinner with New Hampshire Republicans earlier this month, which would be reversal of the reversal he made last month against so-called “amnesty.”
Walker had been a longtime supporter of the pathway to citizenship, but changed his position after questioning from Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday recently, saying talks with border governors had led him to believe “amnesty” would be counterproductive. “My view has changed,” Walker said in the interview. “I’m flat out saying it.”
But, per the WSJ:
During the March 13 New Hampshire dinner, organized by New Hampshire Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Horn at the Copper Door Restaurant in Bedford, Mr. Walker said undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be deported, and he mocked 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s suggestion that they would “self-deport,” according to people who were there.
Instead, they said, Mr. Walker said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to “eventually get their citizenship without being given preferential treatment” ahead of people already in line to obtain citizenship.
…Mr. Walker’s statements about citizenship were at odds with what he told reporters the next day in Concord, where he defended his position opposing a path to citizenship.
Walker’s shift(s) illustrate GOP candidates’ dilemma over immigration. An autopsy of the party’s 2012 loss found Republicans needed to court Latinos, the electorate’s fastest-growing demographic; the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill arose in part out of this desire. But the party’s right-wing flank vociferously opposes what it calls amnesty, and the House GOP ensured the Senate’s immigration compromise died.
If true, this would be Walker’s second backflip of late, following his hiring and firing of digital media consultant Liz Mair last week, which many saw as a capitulation to his party’s conservative base. Mair was targeted by elements of the right because of caustic tweets about Iowa, but also because of her position on — wait for it — immigration.
[h/t Wall Street Journal]
[image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr]
