Rick Santorum on Immigration Republican Jr Senator (PA); 2012 presidential frontrunner

Jobs and good wages scarce due to illegals

Send six million illegals back to their countries

Our policy is magnet that says "amnesty"; that has to change

GRAHAM: Well, the first thing I would do is make adjustments to reality [of ISIS and terrorism]. I would make changes to that bill in light of what I know today.

SANTORUM: Lindsey says this is a real war, until it comes to immigration. And, then, all of a sudden it's not such a real war. The reality is that we've seen since the events of 9/11, the president talks about how he's worried about discrimination and acts against Muslims. There's four times as many acts of violence against Jews than there are against Muslims. I never hear the president talk about that.

Q: What would you do?

SANTORUM: We've created a magnet. We're attracting people. We have a policy that says amnesty. The world hears this, and knows that if they can come across this border, by and large, they're going to be able to stay. That has to change.

We're flooding the job market with low-wage workers

35M immigrants over past 20 years hold down American wages

All new American job growth has gone to immigrants

I had a comprehensive plan in 2006

GRAHAM: What do you do with the 11 million?

SANTORUM: 40 to 60% are here on visa overstays. We have a government that doesn't tell them to return home. The point is that I had a bill...

GRAHAM: That went nowhere.

America is worth the wait, even if families are split up

SANTORUM: My father was born in Italy, and shortly after he was born my grandfather immigrated to this country. And under the laws of this country, he wasn't allowed to be with his father for 7 years. Spent the first 7 years of his life in Fascist Italy, under Benito Mussolini. Not a very pleasant place to be. I asked my dad, "Didn't you resent America for not letting you be with your father in those formative and very threatening years?" You know what he said to me? "America was worth the wait." We're a country of laws, not of people who do whatever they want to do. The reason America is a great country is because our compassion is in our laws. And when we live by those laws and we treat everybody equally under the law, that's when people feel good about being Americans.

Reduce the level of legal immigration by 25%

Follow the rule of law; veto the DREAM Act

Focus on skilled immigrants; now most are unskilled

SANTORUM: Immigration can be, if immigration is done the right way. Immigration policy in America has to put America and American workers first. The focus of immigration policies [should be] on where we need people with certain skills to come to this country to help gin up and encourage our economy. But, unfortunately, the current legal immigration system is not that. We bring a little over a million people a year into this country on average over the past 20 years. And the overwhelming majority are folks who are lower-skilled or unskilled. And as a result of that, they are filling up a labor pool where there's not a booming growth of unskilled labor jobs in this country. And we're bringing people in who will compete against a lot of American workers. In fact, since 2000, the number of native-born Americans working in the workplace has gone down. There are fewer Americans working today who were born in America than there were 15 years ago.

Amnesty to unskilled illegals makes worker wages stagnate

SANTORUM: I'm concerned about the working men & women of this country. We have wages stagnating. And who are the vast majority of [those being granted amnesty]? Unskilled workers. The president is putting close to 5 million more unskilled workers in the workplace, plus an additional 1.1 million every year legally coming into this country.

Q: But what's the Republican plan?

SANTORUM: We need immigration control in this country.

Q: Everyone agrees on securing the border. But what about the 11 million here?

SANTORUM: I'm talking about people here and people that are scheduled to come. The bottom line is, the last 20 years have been the largest wave of immigration in the history of this country. There are more people living in this country who were not born here than at any other time in the history of the country. And what the president is saying is, "we need more." And working men and women are saying, "Hold on. How about us?"

Comprehensive bill is easier than consensus on components

SANTORUM: That's a very tall order. I've never seen that done in Congress. I mean you get these big bills and that's how these things pass. And it's very, very hard to get all those component parts together and get a consensus, particularly when you have a president who has been as, uh, vindictive as this president has been in attacking his Republicans on a variety of issues.

My grandfather immigrated for American Dream, not benefits

My grandfather, like millions of other immigrants, didn't come here for some government guarantee of income equality or government benefits to take care of his family. In 1923 there were no government benefits for immigrants except one: Freedom!

Under President Obama, the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency with almost half of America receiving some government benefit. It is no surprise fewer and fewer Americans are achieving their dreams and more and more parents are concerned their children won't realize theirs.

We need immigration; but we need respect of the law

SANTORUM: I actually agree with Governor Romney. The bottom line is that we need to enforce the laws in this country. We are a country of laws. My grandfather came to this country because he wanted to come to a country that respected him. And a country that respects you is a country that lives by the laws that they have. And the first act when they come to this country, is to disobey a law, it's not a particularly welcome way to enter this country. We have to have a country that not only do you respect the law when you come here, but you respect the law when you stay here. And people who have come to this country illegally have broken the law repeatedly. If you're here, unless you're here on a trust fund, you've been working illegally.

Welcome legal immigrants as part of made-in-America plan

SANTORUM: Well, as the son of a legal immigrant to this country, I strongly believe in legal immigration and believe we are that shining city on the hill. If you look at all of the jobs that are being created in our economy today, a huge percentage of them come from the legal immigrants of this country who have innovated, who created great products, who created great companies and employed lots of people. That's one of the reasons that I put together my economic plan, to take all that great innovation that's coming as a result, in part, of legal immigration and make sure that those products that are being created are actually made here in America. And that's why I put forth a four-point economic plan to revitalize manufacturing that begins with zeroing out the corporate tax for manufacturers

No in-state tuition for illegal immigrants

PERRY: 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.

SANTORUM: Gov. Perry, no one is suggesting that the students that are illegal in this country shouldn't be able to go to college. I think you are sort of making this leap that, unless we subsidize this, the taxpayers subsidize it, they won't be able to go. Most folks who want go to the state of Texas or any other college out of state have to pay the full tuition. The point is, why are we subsidizing? Not that they can't go. They can go. They just have to borrow money, find other sources to be able to go. And why should they be given preferential treatment as an illegal in this country? That's what we're saying.

Finish the border fence; make English the official language

SANTORUM: I'm the son of an Italian immigrant. I believe in immigration, as an important part of the lifeblood of this country. But what we have is a problem of an unsecure border. Unlike Gov. Perry, I believe we need to build more fence. I believe that we need to secure the border using technology and more personnel. And until we build that border, we should neither have storm troopers come in and throw people out of the country nor should we provide amnesty.

PERRY: The idea that you're going to build a wall from Brownsville to El Paso and go left for another 800 miles to Tijuana is just not reality.

SANTORUM: What Gov. Perry's done is he provided in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Maybe that was an attempt to attract the illegal vote--I mean, the Latino voters. But you attract Latino voters by talking about the importance of immigration. You talk about the importance of having English as the official language of this country.

No tricks like 1986; secure the border first

A: We can have the discussion [afterwards, based on] how long they've been here, whether they had other types of records. But to have that discussion right now and pull the same trick that was pulled in 1986--we said, well, we'll promise to do this if you do that--no more. We are going to secure the border first, and that's the most important, then we'll have the discussion afterwards.

No promises & no government benefits to immigrants

SANTORUM: My solution is very similar to Newt Gingrich's. We should not have a debate talking about how we don't want people to come to this country, but we want them to come here like my grandfather and my father came here. They made sacrifices. They came in the 1920s. There were no promises. There were no government benefits. They came because they wanted to be free and they wanted to be good law-abiding citizens.

No benefits for illegal immigrants

SANTORUM: Well, I'm the son of a legal immigrant, and believe in legal immigration. But the federal government should not require states to provide government services. And I think most people who come to this country--certainly all people who come here legally--want it because they wanted the opportunities of this country. And that's what we should be offering. We should not be offering to people-- particularly those who broke the law to come here or overstayed their visa--we should not be offering government benefits.

Q: [to Paul]: But should taxpayers have to pay for that care?

PAUL: No, they should not be forced to.

PAWLENTY: I'm a strong supporter of state rights, but if the federal government won't do its job--in this case, protecting and securing our border--then let the states do it. And they will.

Border is not yet secure; existing laws are not yet enforced

SANTORUM: Well, first up, I disagree. The border is not secure. It's obviously not secure. So the idea that the Republicans have this phony thing that the border's not secure, it's not phony. I mean you have a half a million people are coming this year--

Q: But people are not coming up here to sneak over. The kids who are coming up are saying, "Take me into detention."

SANTORUM: Well, that's because we have a president who said, "Hey, if you come, you're going to be able to stay because we're not going to enforce the law."

Voted YES on building a fence along the Mexican border.

1. systematic border surveillance through more effective use of personnel and technology; and
2. physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful border entry

Proponents support voting YES because:

It is obvious there is no more defining issue in our Nation today than stopping illegal immigration. The most basic obligation of any government is to secure the Nation's borders. One issue in which there appears to be a consensus between the Senate and the House is on the issue of building a secure fence. So rather than wait until comprehensive legislation is enacted, we should move forward on targeted legislation which is effective and meaningful. The legislation today provides over 700 miles of Within 18 months, achieves operational control over U.S. land and maritime borders, including:

1. systematic border surveillance through more effective use of personnel and technology; and
2. physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful border entry

Proponents support voting YES because:

It is obvious there is no more defining issue in our Nation today than stopping illegal immigration. The most basic obligation of any government is to secure the Nation's borders. One issue in which there appears to be a consensus between the Senate and the House is on the issue of building a secure fence. So rather than wait until comprehensive legislation is enacted, we should move forward on targeted legislation which is effective and meaningful. The legislation today provides over 700 miles of

Voted NO on establishing a Guest Worker program.

Voting YES establishes a guest worker program with a path to citizenship for illegal aliens who have worked in the US for 5 years. The bill:
• Increases border security and enforcement
• Makes it unlawful to knowingly hire, recruit, or refer for a fee an unauthorized alien.
• Establishes a temporary guest worker program (H-2C visa) with a three-year admission and one additional three-year extension; and issuance of H-4 nonimmigrant visas for accompanying or following spouse and children;
• Provides permanent resident status adjustment for a qualifying illegal alien, and family, for aliens who have been in the US and employed for five years.

Proponents of the bill say:
• Our immigration system is broken and needs to be repaired. This bill is a strong step in the right direction. We need to protect our borders and look out for American workers, and we also need a responsible way to meet the need for temporary workers, particularly in the agricultural area, where they represent about 70 percent of the U.S. agricultural workforce, with a path to earned citizenship for hard-working, law abiding temporary workers. This bill, the product of bipartisan compromise, takes a commonsense approach to all of these issues.

Opponents of the bill say:
• Our country has been built by immigrants. But the reason we have had quotas for immigration is the world has progressed in different parts of this globe at a very different rate. In some countries, the economies have lagged far behind.
• There are jobs available in this country with rates of pay that are far in excess of those of Third World countries. We have on our southern border people who aspire to come to this country. In order to protect our way of life and our standard of living and to protect jobs, we have quotas.

Voted NO on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security.

To reduce document fraud, prevent identity theft, and preserve the integrity of the Social Security system, by ensuring that persons who receive an adjustment of status under this bill are not able to receive Social Security benefits as a result of unlawful activity.

Proponents of the amendment say to vote NAY because:
• The Immigration Reform bill would allow people to qualify for social security based on work they did while they were illegally present in the US and illegally working in the US. People who broke the law to come here and broke the law to work here can benefit from their conduct to collect social security.
• In some cases, illegal immigrants may have stolen an American citizen's identity. They may have stolen an American's social security number to fraudulently work. This amendment corrects this problem.

Opponents of the amendment say to vote YEA because:
• Americans understand that for years there are undocumented workers who have tried to follow our laws and be good neighbors and good citizens, and have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Once that person regularizes his or her status, and as they proceed down the path to earned citizenship, they should have the benefit after having followed the law and made those contributions. That is fairness.
• We should not steal their funds or empty their Social Security accounts. That is not fair. It does not reward their hard work or their financial contributions.
• The amendment proposes to change existing law to prohibit an individual from gaining the benefit of any contributions made while the individual was in an undocumented status. I oppose this amendment and believe it is wrong.

Voted NO on giving Guest Workers a path to citizenship.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, an alien having nonimmigrant status is ineligible for and may not apply for adjustment of status.''

Proponents of the amendment say to vote NAY because:
• The Immigration Reform Act purports to create two different paths to citizenship for those, first of all, who are in the country living outside of the law in an undocumented status, and secondly, for those who are not yet present in the country but who want to come here at some future date to work.
• We have given the somewhat misleading name of ''guest worker'' to the so-called future flow. A guest is not ordinarily defined as someone who moves in with you and never leaves.
• These so-called guest workers could work here up to 6 years, after which they then apply for a green card. They then get on the path to American citizenship 5 years later.
• It is important for us to debate this issue honestly. The amendment simply makes the point that a guest worker ought to be temporary.

Opponents of the amendment say to vote YEA because:
• If this amendment should pass, that whole compromise is destroyed because a fundamental part of that compromise was that those who have been here for 2 to 5 years would be eligible for green card status and citizenship. This amendment would destroy that compromise.
• We have examples today in Europe of having people living in your country with no hope to ever be a part of that society. No hope, no opportunity, no future, but we will let you work.

Voted YES on allowing more foreign workers into the US for farm work.

Voted YES on visas for skilled workers.

Voted YES on limit welfare for immigrants.