Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney would have turned away his own immigrant father

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

First, a bit of history…

Willard "Mittens" Romney is the son of George Wilcken Romney, an immigrant from Mexico. You read that right.

George W. Romney's grandparents were polygamous Mormons who fled the United States with their children because of the federal government's opposition to polygamy. His maternal grandfather was Helaman Pratt (1846–1909), who presided over the Mormon mission in Mexico City before moving to the state of Chihuahua and who was the son of original Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt (1807–1857).

George W. Romney's parents were American citizens Gaskell Romney (1871–1955) and Anna Amelia Pratt (1876-1926); they married in 1895 in Mexico and lived in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua (one of the Mormon colonies in Mexico) where George Wilcken Romney was born on July 8, 1907.

The Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910 and the Mormon colonies were endangered in 1911–1912 by raids from marauders, including "Red Flaggers" Pascual Orozco and José Inés Salazar. Young George heard the sound of distant gunfire and saw rebels walking through the village streets. The Romney family fled and returned to the United States in July 1912, leaving their home and almost all of their property behind. George W. Romney would later say, "We were the first displaced persons of the 20th century."

The Romney family subsisted with other Mormon refugees on government relief in El Paso, Texas for a few months before moving to Los Angeles, California, where Gaskell Romney worked as a carpenter. In kindergarten there, other children mocked George W. Romney's national origin by calling him "Mex."

That was the early childhood of Willard "Mittens" Romney's father, George W. Romney, an immigrant from Mexico. You would think the life experience of his own father would have had a profound impact upon the opinions and sensitivity of Willard "Mittens" Romney to the issue of immigration, particularly with respect to immigration from Mexico. And you would be wrong.

During last night's episode of "Survivor – GOP Presidential Primary," Willard "Mittens" Romney took a hard-line position on immigration which would have turned away his own immigrant father, and no less stigmatize and demonize him than did his father's kindergarten classmates so many years ago.

From the DNC:

“Mitt Romney on Immigration. Dishonest. To the Extreme.”

During last night's debate, Mitt Romney’s extreme anti-immigrant views were on clear display – so much so that Mitt Romney has now assumed the mantle as the most extreme, right wing presidential candidate on the issue of immigration ever.  Romney’s round them up and throw them out anti-immigrant views use to the be the fare of far right wing gadfly candidates like Tom Tancredo, but no more.  Romney once again went to the far right of every other Republican presidential candidate, refusing to agree with others on the stage that tearing apart families is wrong or that we shouldn't implement an extreme and inhumane immigration policy. This kind of attitude is harmful to our country, our nation’s families, and our standing in the world. It certainly runs counter to what we stand for and doesn’t reflect our values as Americans.

What makes matters even worse is – as is as typical of Mitt Romney – he refuses to level with the American people and won't say what he would actually do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country today.  His spokesman was asked seven times in an interview last night what he would do and he refused to address the issue given repeated opportunities – and instead he attacked the questioner LINK.

This is just another dishonest attempt by Mitt Romney to play politics on an issue to further his political ambitions rather than leveling with the American people about the real challenges we face in addressing this issue.  Romney's immigration stance coupled with a string of dishonest and deceitful statements and campaign tactics just goes to show Mitt Romney will say or do anything – no matter how extreme or outrageous – to get elected. After all, he's running for office, for Pete's sake.