Democratic advocates of comprehensive immigration reform have kept an eye out for high-profile supporter of reform among House Republicans. For some, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Budget Committee chairman and former running mate of Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential elections, has been their man. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who has been the forefront of immigration reform battles in the House, has extolled Ryan as "my guiding light".
"Paul Ryan says we cannot have a permanent underclass of Americans, that there needs to be a pathway to citizenship... I know I get him in trouble every time I say it," says Gutierrez.
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Ryan, who represents a district of a state which relies heavily on immigrant labor at factories producing Waukesha engines, Kohler generators and other manufacturing chains, has frequently pushed back at those who decry "amnesty" for the undocumented and voiced his support for "legalization".
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But Ryan may not be what Gutierrez and other advocates of a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented make him out to be. In an interview on a Bismarck, North Dakota radio station on Thursday, the Wisconsin representative said the GOP doesn't want to "push people into citizenship". He added, "Most people just want to have a legal status so they can work to provide for their families."
An April poll from opinion research firm Latino Decisions found that almost 9 out of 10 undocumented Latinos would pursue citizenship if it were made available to them, though a February Pew Hispanic Center report indicated that two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal Mexican immigrants to the US who are eligible for citizenship have not yet applied.
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After the Washington Examiner reported Ryan's comments, a spokesperson for the representative told the paper his statement did not reflect a major concern for Ryan, adding, "Ryan simply said we don't need a special pathway to citizenship to fix our immigration system."
Back in June, during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe", Ryan told anchors, "At the end of the day, if everybody else in line who came here legally and did everything right is through the system and a person then, after an exhaustive period, after a probationary period, after a green card, not consuming any government benefits, wants to get in line like everybody else for citizenship, we should allow that person to do that. That's earning the right to become a citizen."
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