Presidential Candidate Rick Perry stopped by Iowa this Saturday, in three different parts of its most conservative region, to focus on the issue of immigration. His main tactic was to bring up his work on immigration in Texas to strengthen legislation. Some his key points were how he vetoed a bill that would give illegal immigrants driver's licenses and his signing of a law that required identification when voting. Perry said this signing, "legal votes should not be canceled out by illegal ones."
He may have felt confident in his own words but apparently the audience was not 100% sold on all that he had to say. They were quick to question him about the law in Texas that allows for "illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tution rates at public colleges and universities." To this Perry responded with an economic twist to explain the unpopular bill saying, "They dumped it on the states. Are we going to kick these people to the side of the road and let them become tax wasters? Or are we going to give them the opportunity to go to an institution of higher learning, pay full in-state tuition, which we do, and require them pursue citizenship?” Allow Perry tackled the question quite artfully, he didn't get off the hook that easily. An older woman came up to Perry later on during the event and asked him why it was that one of her children in South Dakota had to pay out-of-state tuition while illegals got in-state tuition in Texas. She vented her frustration calling it "a free-ride" and quite frankly, with breaks up to $70,000, it isn't difficult to understand why the issue upset her.
Perry wrapped it up, however, by putting the bulk of the fault on the federal government. Because of their incompetency in dealing with the border situation, the states are left to deal with the actual issues that arise out of the mass of illegal immigrants that come into the United States every year.
Although Perry definitely seemed to be avoiding some questions, especially those of the press, his overall performance in Iowa wasn't a complete bust. An 88 year old woman made a comment that he was "under the gun" in Texas and yet after said that she believed he may be the best candidate at the moment.
At least on the issue of immigration I think Perry actually dealt with the questions quite well. His answer was even more moderate than I would have expected from a down-south Conservative. Instead of going on a rant about how all illegals should be deporated, which is completely unrealistic, he found a way to make his response seem practical and perhaps more appealing to the moderate conservatives.
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