Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) has been floating to the near top of the polls in the first presidential primary state of New Hampshire thanks to a massive ad campaign and a fairly successful debate performance. Despite this momentum he decided to turn off many Republican primary voters and come out as a liberal on immigration.
In an interview with CNN over the weekend, Kasich endorsed permanent residency for illegal immigrants without a criminal record.
“(The) 11 or 12 million who are here, we ought to find out who they are. If they’ve been law-abiding over a period of time, they ought to be legalized, and they ought to be able to stay here,” Kasich said.
While he was a member of Congress, Kasich had been a solid conservative on immigration issues. He spoke out against so-called “anchor babies” and called for a fence along the Mexican border.
During this interview, he stated that he still supported a border fence, but renounced his opinion on birthright citizenship.
“I don’t think we need to go there,” he said.
“There are people who contribute a lot to the United States of America. If you have violated the law, we’re going to ship you out. And once that fence gets built…I think we should make it clear, anybody who sneaks in, you’re going back home,” the Ohio governor said.
He stated he supports a guest worker program but did not give any specifics on it. Currently, the U.S. gives 700,000 guest worker permits annually.
Kasich also touted Ohio’s program that gives driver licenses to “DREAMers.”
“In terms of these people who were brought here, young children, you know, in our state they can get driver’s licenses,” he continued. “We treat them with respect.”
The Pew Hispanic Center reported that there are 100,000 illegal immigrants in the state of Ohio. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, those undocumented aliens cost the state nearly $879 million annually in welfare, education, and law enforcement.
(h/t Fox News Latino)
