WASHINGTON — Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum isn’t just the latest 2016 Republican presidential candidate to call for ending birthright citizenship, joining Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Scott Walker — he wants credit for being the first to push overall immigration reform.
“I am not new to this debate,” Santorum said, noting that he had authored border security legislation almost a decade ago when he was in the Senate. “…Up until a few days ago, I was the only candidate in this race who put forth a legal and illegal immigration proposal that puts American workers first.”
Santorum rolled out the specific details of his proposed immigration policy on Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington.
Ending birthright citizenship is not his highest priority, he said, but it is a consequence of breaking the law even though it may mean breaking up families. Santorum, who has seven children, has long touted his image as a family man.
“We’re not separating them arbitrarily,” he said. “We’re separating them because they did something and put themselves in a position to jeopardize that relationship with their children.”
With more visible GOP candidates calling for the same reforms he’s supported in the past, Santorum’s message was clear.
“This summer, I was joined by Gov. Walker, who was first to change his position with a few specifics called for limiting legal immigration,” Santorum said. “Now Donald Trump has joined a majority of Americans, and me, with some ideas on how to put America’s workers first.”
Santorum said he would build “hundreds of miles of new walls” along the U.S.-Mexico border, as have other candidates, he specified that he wants the American workers to build those walls, unlike Trump, who called for the Mexican government to foot the bill.
Visa overstays, Santorum said, are one of the largest contributing factors to numbers of illegal immigrants. By enforcing a biometric tracking system for every immigrant, Santorum said, he would “track who is here and who has overstayed.”
Eliminating the visa lottery and chain migration to reduce the rate of legal immigration to the U.S. were part of Santorum’s plan, as well as using e-verify to check the status of employee citizenship and ending amnesty.
“Amnesty will make competition more fierce, not less; encourage more immigration, not less; and further depress wages,” he said.
Santorum also said he would eliminate “sanctuary cities,” which have policies to shelter illegal immigrants, by withholding federal funds from them.
In a CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted Aug. 13-16, only 1 percent of Republicans said they want him to win the GOP presidential nomination.
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