Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry strutted onto the stage in control of his tough-but-patriotic Texan cowboy image, and promised to “speak plainly” during his Conservative Political Action Conference address Friday morning.
After describing President Obama’s foreign policy as one in which “our allies doubt us, and our adversaries are all too willing to test us,” Perry said “for the world to be safer, America must be stronger. And for America to be safer, our border must be secure.”
“Drug-cartels, trans-national gangs, they smuggle drugs and weapons and people. They are a clear and present danger to the health and safety of all Americans. Any conversation about comprehensive immigration reform must begin with comprehensive border security,” Perry said.
Obama went to Texas for three Democratic fundraisers last July but did not visit the U.S.-Mexican border, although the country was facing the influx of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors crossing into Texas and Arizona.
At the time, says Perry, “I told the president, looked him right in the eye and said, ‘If you will not secure the border between Texas and Mexico, Texas will.’ ”
“You don’t trust Washington to deal with (immigration reform). I don’t trust Washington to deal with this, until they secure the border.” Perry suggested deploying the National Guard and “aviation assets that look down 24/7” to monitor the border.
Ultimately, Perry said America’s republican form of government is “too durable to be sidetracked by one confused administration. … We’ve survived worse. We had a Civil War in this country, we had two world wars. We had a Great Depression; we even survived Jimmy Carter. We will survive the Obama years, too.”
Perry appears to be in the process of revitalizing his image as a 2016 presidential contender, and his strong position on border security is a way to distance himself from heavy-hitter moderate candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Bush has come under fire from Republicans for his 2014 description of illegal immigration as “an act of love.”
“Someone who comes to our country because they couldn’t come legally, they come to our country because their families,” said Bush. “They wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family.”
Christie has been more reluctant to describe his position on immigration in recent years. In 2009, Christie said he opposed giving children in-state college tuition rates if they were brought to the country illegally, because New Jersey could not afford the financial burden of educating students from families who do not pay taxes.
But in December 2013, Christie reversed his position and signed into law a tuition bill for students brought to the country illegally to pay in-state tuition costs after he was reelected with majority support from Hispanics, according to National Journal. Today, Christie talks about immigration reform in the context of “a broken system.”
Interestingly, in a 2012 presidential debate, then-Gov. Perry defended a Texas policy that allowed so-called Dreamers to pay in-state college tuition rates. Perry even said, “I don’t think you have a heart” of people who disagreed with him. Perry continued to endorse the tuition policy through his governorship.
