Cross Posted at The Progressive Zionist
Here is Mitt's campaign in South Carolina:
Around the beginning of the year, voters in South Carolina received mailings that noted the former Massachusetts governor’s position on illegal immigration.
“The mailer talks about putting an end to magnets or benefits that illegal immigrants have,” a local South Carolina publication quoted a Romney campaign spokesman, Ryan Williams, as saying, “ensuring a tamper-proof system that allows employers to check the status of their employees and creating a strong border fence.”
“The Obama administration is opposed to common sense immigration laws,” SummervillePatch.com quoted Williams as saying. “With Romney’s plan there would be no magnets, no jobs, no holes in the borders.”
Well it turns out that Mr. Romney himself has roots in Mexico and that his Grandparents were ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO MEXICO and then Mittens' dad was born in Mexico and "came back" to the U.S. It turns out that Mitt Romney can be the first Hispanic President of the United States.
Here is Rubin Naverette (a Right Wing guy himself) at cnn.com
Or should I say, "primo!" As much as it embarrasses me to admit it, given some of his views and how he expresses them, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and I could be distant cousins. Romney's father, George, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, and so was my grandfather, Roman.
Que? You didn't know that Mitt Romney was half-Mexican? It's true. In fact, if he makes it to the White House, in addition to becoming the first Mormon in the Oval Office, he could also be the nation's first Hispanic president....
.....Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, fled the United States and crossed into Mexico in 1885 to escape religious persecution. He helped build the Mormon enclave of Colonia Juarez in Chihuahua.
Miles Park Romney never became a Mexican citizen, and neither did his son, Gaskell, or grandson, George. They were all denied Mexican citizenship because statutes on the books in Mexico denied that right to American settlers and their offspring.
Apparently Mitt Romney's family first illegally entered Mexico in 1885, tried to become citizens of Mexico and were denied citizenship. It seems that they then came back seeking... what is it Mitt says... "economic magnets". Man, if we had, had the laws that Mitt and xenophobic friends propose for the border now, I bet Mitt wouldn't have been allowed back. After all, his grandfather LEFT the U.S. (so much for American exceptionalism)...
What is even more interesting is that "Mittens" just picked up the endorsement of those who wrote Arizona's hateful Immigration Law. According to the HuffPo's Elise Foley:
WASHINGTON -- GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney announced on Wednesday an endorsement from Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who helped write laws meant to drive immigrants out of states like Arizona and Alabama....
.... In a statement released Wednesday, Romney praised Kobach's efforts to cut down on unauthorized immigration and said he will support the South Carolina and Alabama immigration laws..
"I'm so proud to earn Kris's support," Romney said. "Kris has been a true leader on securing our borders and stopping the flow of illegal immigration into this country."
Of course the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) disagrees with this as Kobach was legal counsel to FAIR:
The Southern Poverty Law Center says FAIR is a racist organization. The center’s report on Kobach describes the Republican as a political opportunist, comparing him to the character of con man Harold Hill in the musical “The Music Man.”
“Like Hill, they say, Kobach comes to town with big ideas and a can-do attitude but leaves behind a trail of tears — huge legal bills and unworkable laws coupled with social turmoil,” the report said.
and of course Kobach's support of racial profiling:
Kobach, 44, has spent much of his professional life developing the legal framework that a growing number of state and local officials have used to justify anti-immigration proposals. A rising star in the GOP establishment, Kobach—a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School—joined John Ashcroft's Justice Department days before 9/11. Over the next two years, he helped create a program that required all visiting citizens from 25 mostly Arab countries to be fingerprinted and monitored—a policy that critics said amounted to racial profiling.
I wonder what Kobach would say about Mittens and his grandfather.