One Republican presidential candidate isn’t distancing himself from Donald Trump on immigration. Scott Walker says he had many of the same ideas first.
Hours after the New York businessman unveiled his first detailed position paper on immigration — calling for an end to birthright citizenship, a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and triple as many Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — Walker jumped at the opportunity to remind voters that he had proposed nearly identical policies months before Trump entered the presidential race.
“It’s similar to what I brought up about four or five months ago,” Walker said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” Monday. “In fact, earlier in the year I was on Fox News Sunday and laid out what I thought we should do which is secure the border which means build the wall, have the technology, have the personnel to make sure it’s safe and secure.”
The two-term governor hesitated to give Trump’s three-pronged approach a “thumbs up,” but said he agreed with the real estate magnate’s call to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to illegal-immigrant mothers.
“To me it’s about enforcing the laws in this country,” Walker said, adding that “it’s important to send a message that we’re going to enforce the laws, no matter how people come here we’re going to enforce the laws in this country.”
Trump’s immigration proposal earned praise from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who currently serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest and who met with Trump several times to discuss the hot-button issue. In April, Sessions called Walker’s attitude toward illegal immigration “helpful for the republic.”
In addition to declaring his opposition to birthright citizenship long before Trump, Walker has spent months trying to satisfy his conservative base with a dramatically tougher approach to immigration after previously supporting a “legal pathway” to citizenship for immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally.
“My view has changed. I’m flat out saying it,” he told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in March.
Nevertheless, Trump’s heated rhetoric about illegal Mexican immigrants during his campaign announcement positioned him seemingly at the helm of the debate over illegal immigration — rhetoric with which Walker will be forced to compete, as long as the bombastic billionaire remains in the race.
“If in fact immigration remains one of the most important issues of this campaign, Trump has set the bar very high early on for the other candidates,” Bob Dane, communications director for the nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform, told the Washington Examiner.
According to Dane, Walker made a “fundamental error” when crafting his position on immigration that has facilitated Trump’s ability to secure such widespread support.
“[Walker] was espousing policy instead of principles,” Dane said. “Trump may be leading the pack numerically, but he is also leading the pack by boldly taking what the principle is which may not have occurred yet to the other candidates.”
“He understood that immigration isn’t just an issue it is the transformational determinant of where we are headed as a country [and] even if he drops out, this plan of his has meaningful residuals that the candidates are going to have to address.”
Trump currently enjoys a 15-point lead over Walker in Iowa, according to a recent CNN/ORC poll of registered Republicans in the early primary state. At 35 percent, the former reality TV host also dominates the remaining 16 GOP hopefuls as the candidate respondents said they trust the most to handle illegal immigration.
Despite having “similar” views, just 3 percent of Iowa Republicans selected Walker as the candidate they trust the most to fix the country’s crumbling immigration system.
