Wall Street Journal
By Colleen McCain Nelson
April 29, 2015
Mike
Huckabee, a likely presidential candidate, made an impassioned appeal
to Hispanic evangelicals Wednesday with promises to protect life and
religious liberty, telling
them that he may not speak the same language but he shares the same
faith.
“I
do not come to you tonight with the ability to speak Spanish,” Mr.
Huckabee, a Republican and former Arkansas governor, said during an
appearance at the National Hispanic
Christian Leadership Conference. “But I do speak a common language. I
speak Jesus.”
Mr.
Huckabee, who is expected to announce his bid for the Republican
presidential nomination next week, told the group that the U.S. is
losing its way and letting go of
foundational values that were taken from scripture.
As
he reached out to Hispanics, a voting bloc that GOP candidates have
struggled to connect with, Mr. Huckabee cast himself as an Arkansas
everyman who grew up having
more in common with the kitchen staff than those seated at the head
table.
Mr.
Huckabee’s speech to Hispanic evangelical conference came after former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wooed the same crowd, speaking both in Spanish and
English. Mr. Bush promised
to fix a broken immigration system and give undocumented workers a
chance to earn legal status.
Mr.
Huckabee, during a dinner address, offered no insights into his views
on immigration policy, saying there was no time to argue the issue this
evening.
Earlier, though, during his availability to media, Mr. Huckabee expressed support for a fence to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Fences
are not negative,” he said, suggesting that immigrants in the U.S.
would agree that it is appropriate for the government to control the
border.
“I
don’t think that that’s an insult to anybody,” he said. “If I were a
person immigrating here, I would want to know that the doors that I came
through were also secure.”
Mr.
Huckabee declined to say whether he would support a pathway to
citizenship or legal status for immigrants who had come to the U.S.
illegally. First, the border must
be controlled, he said, and until that is accomplished, such
discussions spark unnecessary controversy.
In
2006, Mr. Huckabee called a pathway to citizenship a “rational
approach,” but he has used tougher language in recent years and has been
a critic of President Barack
Obama’s executive actions giving safe harbor from deportation to many
illegal immigrants.
At
the dinner Wednesday night, Mr. Huckabee warned that these are
“perilous times, where people who are Christian are on the brink of
being criminalized for their convictions.”
He previously suggested that allowing same-sex couples to marry would
lead to the criminalization of Christianity.
As
the Supreme Court wrestles this week with the question of same-sex
marriage, Mr. Huckabee said he respects the court but that it can’t
“change what God created.”
“It
is not the supreme being,” he told an enthusiastic crowd that
repeatedly interrupted his remarks with applause. “It cannot overrule
God.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment