Bloomberg
By Sahil Kapur
August 17, 2015
Republican
presidential candidate Scott Walker said Monday his immigration plan is
"very similar" to the policy blueprint released Sunday by Donald Trump
which amounts
to a comprehensive attack on legal and illegal immigration.
"I
haven't looked at all the details of his but the things I've heard are
very similar to the things I've mentioned," the Wisconsin governor said
on Fox & Friends.
Walker's
remarks came as new polling data show the one-time Iowa front-runner
lagging the billionaire political rookie, and suggest that Trump has put
his rivals in a
box by speaking loudly and aggressively on immigration, for which he's
being rewarded by the party base. As another Republican presidential
candidate, former Senator Rick Santorum, prepared to unveil his
immigration proposals later this week, it raises the
question of whether Trump's ascent risks turning the Republican primary
into a competition over who can be toughest on immigrants.
While
that might be a welcome development for some Republican primary voters,
it could prove perilous for the party in the long run with one of the
country's fastest-growing
demographics. In the 2012 election, Barack Obama won 71 percent of the
Latino vote, a score that was key to his reelection and was widely
attributed to the Republican Party's hostile rhetoric on immigration.
On
Fox, Walker seemed eager to associate himself with Trump's plan. He
said he wants to "secure the border" and "enforce the law," as well as
build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico
border and crack down on sanctuary cities. "No amnesty," he said. "I
don't believe in amnesty, which I think is similar to what [Trump]
said."
Walker
also pointed to earlier remarks he made about immigration on Fox News
Sunday in March, when he called for beefing up border security and said
he no longer supports
a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which he backed in
2013.
Like
Trump, whose plan also proposes strict limits to legal immigration,
Walker has called for examining the legal immigration system in order to
protect American jobs.
The difference between himself and Trump, Walker insisted, is that he'll do something about it.
"I'm
the guy who's shown you can do it. I fought, I won, I got results and I
did it without compromising my conservative principles. I think in the
end that's the kind
of leadership people want," he said Monday. "They're upset and they're
looking for someone who's gonna do something about it."
Santorum,
the 2012 Republican runner-up who is lagging in the polls this time
around, has also called for curtailing legal and illegal immigration. He
is slated to roll
out his immigration policies during a speech Thursday in Washington.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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