Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is rising as a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination thanks to some well-received appearances on the national stage and stumbles by other potential candidates — but conservative activists warn there is one issue that could cause Walker to stumble, too: immigration.
Walker does not have much of a record on immigration, and his various public comments on the hot-button subject have been open to interpretation. Activists warn that he’ll have to clarify his stance or risk losing conservative support.
“It is frustrating that Walker’s position is still vague and at times contradictory. Before he gets on a national stage, he has to figure out a way out of this fog,” said Bob Dane, spokesman for the restrictionist Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Roy Beck, founder of the restrictionist group NumbersUSA, agrees. Walker’s great advantage, he explained, is that he is the “vanilla ice cream” candidate: Vanilla might not be everyone’s favorite flavor, but most people will go with it if they can’t have their first choice. That leaves Walker well-positioned to build support as other candidates are forced to drop out of the primary.
“He won’t continue to be vanilla if he is seen as weak on immigration,” Beck said.
Walker spokesman Tom Evenson issued the following statement to the Washington Examiner regarding the governor’s stance:
The statement does not go far enough, critics say. “Nothing here indicates he wouldn’t sign the Gang of Eight bill [comprehensive Senate reform legislation that conservatives opposed] or that he’d actually secure the borders before legalizing the 11 million illegals,” said Mickey Kaus, a blogger for the conservative Daily Caller who follows immigration closely.
Walker must emphasize the “secure the borders” issue and make clear that it must come before anything else, Kaus argued, if the governor wants to distinguish himself from more pro-immigration candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. If not, he risks giving ammunition to conservative contenders.
“If you were Walker, you’d want to at least give some indication that you don’t have Jeb’s semi-erotic fixation with amnesty and ever-increasing levels of immigration,” Kaus said.
Wisconsin political observers say that part of the issue is that immigration just isn’t that high on the lists of Badger State voter concerns compared with other states, relieving Walker of the need to have a detailed position.
“Immigration matters here — most big dairies, for instance, would have difficulty functioning without Latino workers — but Arizona we ain’t,” said Jason Stein, political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Walker attracted a lot of attention for comments he made to Wisconsin’s Daily Herald Media editorial board in 2013: “If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don’t care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else.”
He dismissed the idea of a border wall and told the editorial board it “makes sense” to allowing existing illegal immigrants to become citizens, providing there was a proper mix of penalties and waiting periods. The major problem with the existing system was the red tape involved.
“[I]f it wasn’t so cumbersome, if there wasn’t such a long wait, if it wasn’t so difficult to get in, we wouldn’t have the other problems that we have,” Walker told the editorial board.
In 2010, Walker criticized an Arizona law requiring suspected illegal immigrants to show proof of citizenship, saying, “[I]n America we don’t want our citizens getting pulled over because of how they look.” He later said, after talking to one of the bill’s sponsors, that his concerns were overblown.
More recently, Walker has sought to present a more conservative image, telling ABC on Feb. 1: “We for sure need to secure the border. I think we need to enforce the legal system. I’m not for amnesty. I’m not an advocate of the plans that have been pushed here in Washington.”
Beck said the ABC comments showed that he realized that GOP primary voters “doubt his intentions.”
