Politics, immigration make a volatile mix

by Rob Hotakainen, Miami Herald : Politicians with presidential aspirations have been known to change their stated views on a controversial subject like immigration. A year ago, when Sen. Sam Brownback, the conservative Kansas Republican, co-sponsored legislation that would have allowed millions of undocumented immigrants to seek U.S. citizenship, he was attacked as a liberal. . . . Brownback and another of this year's Republican presidential candidates, Arizona Sen. John McCain, teamed up last year with Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts to sponsor legislation to provide better border security and create a guest-worker program for 12 million undocumented immigrants. . . .

''I see so many conversions,'' said Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, an advocate of strict immigration controls, at a Republican presidential debate in South Carolina earlier this month. Last year, Tancredo called Brownback ``an extreme opponent of getting tough on illegal immigration.'' At the debate, he said the bill co-sponsored by Brownback and McCain ''would have given amnesty to everybody who's here illegally,'' and he got laughs when he said he was glad to see the conversions but that he would trust them only ``when they happen on the road to Damascus and not on the road to Des Moines.'' Brownback declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story . . . [Read More]

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