New York Times
By Trip Gabriel
April 24, 2015
After
giving a version of his stump speech to a mostly gray-haired crowd in
Iowa, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was pressed on Friday by two
twenty-something Republicans
about a percolating issue he did not mention: immigration.
Mr.
Walker’s apparent hardening on immigration has inspired a flood of
reporting and commentary. Most recently he told the radio host Glenn
Beck that he favored restricting
legal immigration in tough economic times, a position to the right of
most other 2016 presidential hopefuls.
He
repeated that view Friday after a speech in Cedar Rapids, when Eddie
Failor, 24, expressed concern “as a young Republican” that the party
must make inroads to new voter
blocs, including by supporting a comprehensive overhaul of immigration.
Mr.
Walker told Mr. Failor that his top priority would be securing the
border. He also said he favored “making sure the legal immigration
system is based on making our
No. 1 priority to protect American workers and their wages.’’
Alexander
Staudt, the treasurer of the University of Iowa College Republicans,
also told Mr. Walker in the meet-and-greet line that he was concerned
that by talking tough
on immigration, Republican candidates would turn off Hispanics.
“In
terms of how wide or how narrow the door’s open, our No. 1 priority is
American workers and American wages,’’ Mr. Walker told him. “I don’t
know how anyone can argue
against that.’’
Both
Mr. Staudt and Mr. Failor asked the governor what he would do about the
millions of undocumented workers already in the country. Mr. Walker
said they should return
to their countries of origin and apply for legal entry.
Mr.
Staudt liked that answer. “The bigger that number gets,’’ he said,
referring to undocumented immigrants, “it’s going to become less
economically viable.’’
But Mr. Failor, who has attended several Republican candidates’ events this year, said he was disappointed.
“He
gave a conflicting message, in my opinion,’’ he said. “He said he’s not
one who believes in spending billions of dollars to deport all these
undocumented immigrants.
When I asked if he supported a pathway to legal status, he said no,
he’d send them back to their country of origin and let them get in line
with everybody else. I don’t know how that works within the deportation
equation.’’
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