Haley Barbour backs ‘path to citizenship’
“I am very comfortable with a path to citizenship,” Barbour told reporters at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “It should be more strenuous than the path for people who come here under the regular rules. … I’m very comfortable with that. Some people aren’t. And that’s part of what getting from here to there is all about.”
Barbour was holding a reporter roundtable with former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. The pair are co-chairing the center’s immigration task force, along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
In recent weeks, two potential 2016 Republican nominees — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — were forced to clarify if they supported giving citizenship to illegal immigrants as party of an immigration reform deal. A path to citizenship is critical for Democrats, who say merely giving immigrants legal status would create a permanent underclass.
“There are probably a variety of ways you could have a pathway to citizenship that would pass muster with me,” Barbour said. “There are some that wouldn’t, if they were too fast, if they didn’t have any special requirements.”
Politico
3/20/13
Magnolia Tribune
