Romney’s Dad Is From Mexico; Here’s His Immigration Plan

By Janell Ross, Huffington Post Latino Voices

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney offered a disclaimer in the second presidential debate Tuesday before he addressed his stance on immigration, offering a policy mix from “self-deportation” to support for green cards for members of the military and undocumented immigrants with critically needed skills.

“First of all, this is a nation of immigrants,” Romney said. “My dad was born in Mexico of American parents.”

Romney’s approach in the debate supports the assessment that historians, political analysts and swing-state voters shared with The Huffington Post: In the final weeks before the election, when and how Romney talks about immigration matters greatly in determining the outcome.

Romney needs to claim about 30 percent of the Latino vote to take the White House. A growing share of those voters rank immigration among their top political priorities, according to a series of Latino Decisions tracking polls. Now, as Romney moves toward the center on issues as divergent as tax policy and abortion, his consistently conservative, “anti-amnesty” position on immigration is drawing the attention of people on both sides of the border, who say that political expediency and the way that Romney portrays his own family’s immigrant history are obstructing a public move toward more a moderate stance.

The Romney campaign declined to comment.

Romney’s Tuesday night wind-up was supposed to soften the blow that comes with the rest of his immigration ideas, said Chad Snow, an Arizona lawyer who, like Romney, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Saying my dad was born in Mexico? That’s the new version of, ‘Oh I have a lot of black friends,'” said Snow, who helped spearhead the effort to unseat Russell Pearce, an Arizona Mormon, former State Senate leader and a driving force behind Arizona’s strict immigration law, SB 1070.

The state law in effect creates the kind of conditions which Romney has suggested — and reiterated Tuesday — might prompt undocumented immigrants to, “make their own choice,” and self-deport. Pearce’s position on immigration was untenable, Snow said, but Romney’s is puzzling. The Mormon church’s position on the matter encourages its members to treat undocumented immigrants with kindness and concern.

Still, Snow plans to vote for Romney. The reason, he said: pure financial self-interest. And, he’s certain a more moderate Romney will emerge after the election.

“If you looked at Mitt Romney he is a guy that you would think would be very moderate,” Snow said. “He’s Mormon and I know he’s a good Mormon. He’s a businessman. The business interests here in Arizona hated Russell Pearce and his extremism. … Yet, Romney has taken this very strident position. I don’t know what other way to describe it. I think he’s faking it.”

Others believe Romney may well be committed to policies that encourage a large number of the nation’s undocumented population — about 60 percent of whom hail from Mexico — to self-deport.

A close look at Romney’s debate-night disclaimer and the way that he described his family’s move to Mexico in his 2004 book, Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games, show a man who thinks of 21st century immigrants seeking safety or economic refuge in the United States as altogether different than the members of the Romney family that moved to Mexico in 1885, said Jeff Biggers, a historian who has researched the Romney family. (Biggers has blogged about his findings for The Huffington Post.)

After reviewing public records and information in an Arizona Mormon archive,…

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This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.