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Romney Pushes Employment Verification System
With a big month in Iowa looming, Republican Mitt Romney is airing a commercial focused on one of the state's hot-button issues: immigration. Five days before the latest GOP presidential debate, and 11 days before the party's straw poll, Romney trimmed a May television ad into a 30-second spot in which he reiterates his support for legal immigration. "We should put in place an employment verification system," Romney tells an audience member in a scene from one of his "Ask Mitt Anything" town hall meetings. "And then, when an employer is thinking of hiring someone, the federal database immediately tells them whether they're available to be working or not. If they're not, you can't hire them." Romney assailed the immigration compromise backed by President Bush and rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The former Massachusetts governor said the deal would create amnesty for illegals already in the country. Congress subsequently killed the measure.
Story Continues Below In mid-July in Iowa, Romney criticized GOP rival and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for making the city "a sanctuary city for illegal aliens" by failing to enforce immigration laws. Romney noted that he deputized state police to enforce immigration laws and denied driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The theme plays well in Iowa, where the federal government has raided meat processing plants employing illegals, and where some longtime residents feel their pay is being undercut by cheaper-working immigrants. All the GOP candidates will be in Des Moines on Aug. 5 for the debate. Romney is making a bid to win the Aug. 11 straw poll in Ames.
Campaigning in Virginia Tuesday, Romney attributed last fall's Democratic takeover of Congress to anger over the war in Iraq. "People were upset with the lack of progress in Iraq, and since they couldn't fire the coach they fired the team," the former Massachusetts governor told reporters after a private get-acquainted session with about 200 invited guests at a Richmond hotel.
© 2007 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
2008 Presidential Race
Inside Cover Stories
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