Immigration, Republican | featured news

Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship, a significant step for the Tea Party favorite amid growing Republican acceptance of the idea.

California's elected Republicans have long had a simple approach to illegal immigration: Those who broke the law coming here should leave. But the confluence of politics and personal threat have now put many Republican legislators in Washington and Sacramento in a very different place: eager to embrace an overhaul of immigration laws and willing to consider legal status for some of the country's nearly 12 million illegal immigrants, 3 million of whom live in California.

George W. Bush was president of the United States less than five years ago. You'd never know it by listening to Republican politicians or talking with GOP party strategists -- all of whom seem perfectly willing to simply erase Bush from their collective memory. (It's a sort of political version of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.")

Mitt Romney plans to make an appeal to Hispanic voters Monday in a speech where he is expected to distinguish himself as the better presidential candidate on economy and immigration, a topic that has brought his campaign considerable controversy.

Mitt Romney has had a lot to say about immigration over the past few days, but what he has said adds up to a giant question mark. Rarely has a presidential candidate had as many opportunities to clarify or recalibrate his position on a vital issue, and rarely has a candidate passed up those opportunities as consistently as the former governor.

In the past six days, President Obama has sent a very clear message to Republicans in Congress. And that message goes like this: Bring it on. His decision to stop actively deporting young illegal immigrants, which was announced last Friday, and his action Wednesday to invoke executive privilege over documents tied to the “Fast and Furious” program both amount to a finger in the eye of House GOPers.

Many Republican strategists see recent remarks having a potentially negative impact in swing states with many Hispanic voters.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, facing a conservative backlash over his labeling as heartless those who oppose his state law giving college tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants, said Wednesday that the tone of his remarks was “inappropriate.”

In an on-camera interview with Newsmax.com, a conservative media outlet, Perry said he had been “over-passionate” in his answer to a question about the law during last week’s GOP presidential candidates debate.

Arizona’s Sen. John McCain (R) said illegal immigrants may have started some of the wildfires that have forced thousands of people from their homes in his state, but he did not give evidence to support the statement.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman says her husband might have seen a 2003 letter warning that their housekeeper's government records ...