Romney’s Immigration Hypocrisy
Days after Massachusetts Republican Governor Mitt Romney hired a key spokesman from the failed leadership that cost Republicans the House and Senate, there is more trouble for Romney’s fledgling White House bid. After months of traveling the country talking tough on immigration in anticipation of his presidential run, news reports today revealed Romney’s hypocrisy on the issue.
The Boston Globe reports that Governor Romney has been employing a landscaping company that relies heavily on undocumented workers to maintain his lawn for the last decade. Romney has continued to employ Community Lawn Service to manicure his 2.5 acre estate, even after media reports this summer sparked a controversy over the company’s hiring of undocumented labor for public landscaping contracts with the Massachusetts Port Authority and public schools in Chelsea, MA.
In the debate that followed the revelations about Community Lawn Service’s hiring, Governor Romney took a hard line on undocumented workers, arguing that the state police should be authorized to arrest illegal immigrants. The move appears to be part of Romney’s plan to use the immigration issue to cozy up to conservative Republican primary voters. Romney has traveled the country calling for penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, supporting construction of a 700-mile fence along the more than 2000 mile U.S.- Mexico border, and calling for National Guard troops to be stationed at the border until the wall is finished. [Boston Globe, 12/1/06] In fact, Governor Romney has been so vocal on the issue that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly dubbed a border fence “the Mitt Romney Memorial wall.”
ROMNEY’S TOUGH TALK, LAX HIRING ON IMMIGRATION
Romney: “Those Who Are Here Illegally Should Not Receive Tacit Support From Our Government That Gives an Indication of Legitimacy.” On January 9, 2006 the Boston Herald reported, “Last year Massachusetts legislators killed a bill that would have permitted undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes to file for driver’s licenses using their taxpayer identification number instead of a Social Security number, as the law currently requires. Before that move, Governor Mitt Romney had declared: ‘Those who are here illegally should not receive tacit support from our government that gives an indication of legitimacy.’” [Boston Herald, 1/9/05; Boston Globe, 10/28/03]
Romney Called for Wall on US – Mexico Border; Wanted National Guard to Defend. In an interview broadcast by Fox News on September 29, 2006, host Bill O’Reilly asked Romney, “Would you build a wall between Mexico and the United States and would you put the National Guard on the border?” Romney responded, “Absolutely. We’d put the National Guard there because we don’t have the wall yet. You have to have a wall or a fence or electronic surveillance. And you have to have a tamper-proof document to make sure that people who are here are aliens are identified and registered, and people can not hire them unless they’re here legally.” [Fox News, 9/29/06]
