Mainstream political reporters immediately pounced upon Newt Gingrich's comments during the last GOP presidential debate regarding illegal immigration: "I do not see how the party who says it's the party of the family adopts an immigration policy which destroys families who have been here a quarter century… And I'm prepared to take the heat in saying let's be humane in enforcing the law."
Since then he has said that any suggestion that he favors legalizing the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is "explicitly false."
His opponents in the race, most prominently Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachmann, have condemned Gingrich's comments as tantamount to supporting amnesty.
Will Gingrich's comments hurt him in the GOP primaries? That remains to be seen, of course, but Gary Segura, a researcher at Latino Decisions and a professor of political science at Stanford University, disputes the assertion.
In a conference call Tuesday morning, Segura discussed a recently published survey for Univision News/Latino Decisions that shows that given the choice, Americans support allowing undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, as long as they are found not to have committed any crimes, and that they pay a fine and any back taxes they may owe.
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2011.