By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Sep 24, 2011 11:00 AM GMT+0700
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Rick Perry, Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Getty Images
Rick Perry was chastised yesterday by his top rival in the Republican presidential race for his support of allowing illegal-immigrant students in Texas to pay in-state tuition at public universities, an issue posing a political vulnerability for the Texas governor.
The day after a nationally televised debate in which Perry’s immigration stance sparked sustained criticism and his defense of it drew audience boos, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney spotlighted the issue at a gathering of conservatives in Orlando, Florida.
“My friend Governor Perry said that if you don’t agree with his position on giving that in-state tuition to illegals, then you don’t have a heart,” Romney said. “I think if you’re opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a heart; it means that you have a heart and a brain.”
Romney, who is Perry’s closest competitor in polls on the Republican race, was reprising Perry’s defense of the tuition program at the Sept. 22 debate in Orlando.
“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said at the forum that featured nine presidential contenders.
Perry’s Challenge
For Perry, the immigration issue could present a unique challenge. His stance fits the profile of his state, which has a large and growing Hispanic population. Yet it threatens to alienate many of the fiscal and social conservatives outside of Texas who hold sway in Republican nominating contests and oppose government aid to illegal immigrants.
Perry, speaking to the same audience as Romney yesterday, didn’t address the immigration matter, although he suggested a poor debate performance shouldn’t be held against him.
“It’s not who is the slickest candidate or the smoothest debater that we need to elect,” he said. “We need to elect the candidate with the best record and the best vision for this country.”
Perry criticized Romney on health care, equating a plan enacted during his governor’s term in Massachusetts with “socialized medicine,” and calling it “misguided.”
Perry’s immigration position drew sharp opposition from other rivals at the debate, including Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. She also came back to the issue during her appearance yesterday before the conservative activists, saying, “We will not have taxpayer-subsidized benefits for illegal immigrants or their children.”
Border Fence
Bachmann reiterated her debate vow to build a border fence the length of the U.S. border with Mexico, which Perry has denounced as impractical and ineffective.
Bachmann said at the debate: “I would build a fence on America’s southern border -- on every mile, on every yard, on every foot on every inch of the southern border.”
Romney said yesterday that what he “still can’t get over is the idea that a state would decide to give a $100,000 discount to illegals to go to school in their state.”
His comment referred to the estimate he had used at the debate of how much more a four-year degree would cost an illegal immigrant student at a Texas college who paid out-of-state tuition.
Florida Republican leaders and activists are meeting in Orlando for a three-day conference that culminates in a non- binding straw poll of the presidential candidates today.
Romney earlier this year said he wouldn’t actively campaign in any straw polls. In Florida, Perry was favored among 28 percent of the Republicans surveyed by Quinnipiac University Sept. 14-19, and Romney was favored among 22 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Orlando, Florida at or Jdavis159@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva@bloomberg.net
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