海角大神

Fresh off a strong second-place showing in the聽, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker聽

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a presumptive 2016 Republican presidential candidate, says he has changed his immigration stance and no longer backs comprehensive reform that would allow illegal immigrants to be penalized but remain in the country.

鈥淢y view has changed,鈥� Walker said in a 鈥淔ox News Sunday鈥� interview taped Friday. 鈥淚鈥檓 flat out saying it.鈥�

Walker in 2013 said a plan in which illegal immigrants can become United States citizens by first paying penalties and enduring a waiting period 鈥渕akes sense.鈥�

However, he is now saying such a plan is tantamount to amnesty, amid criticism that he has flip-flopped on that issue and others 鈥� including right-to-work legislation in his home state.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe in amnesty,鈥� said Walker, who finished second Saturday in the Conservative Political Action Conference鈥檚 straw poll for potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates. 鈥淲e need to secure the border. We ultimately need to put in place a system that works 鈥� a legal immigration system that works.鈥�

Walker also is among the 25 Republican governors who have joined in a lawsuit challenging the president鈥檚 2014 executive action that defers deportation for millions of illegal immigrants.

This contrasts significantly with聽聽with a local Wisconsin newspaper鈥檚 editorial board, as well as during聽

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Friday that he supports a pathway to citizenship to illegal immigrants but said that people who are waiting in line should have 鈥渇irst preference.鈥�

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to find a way to say that people who are in line right now have first preference,鈥� the Republican governor said at POLITICO鈥檚 third annual State Solutions Conference in Washington.

And while Republicans 鈥� including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) 鈥� have recently been outspoken about the need for immigration reform, Walker said that the issue is the country needs to deal with and not just Republicans.

Walker said that in addition to not having enough visas for immigrants is that the system in general is broken.

鈥淲e just have a broken system. And to me, if somebody wants to come in and live the American dream and work hard ... we should have a system that works and let鈥檚 people in,鈥� Walker told POLITICO鈥檚 Jonathan Martin at the event.

He added: 鈥淭he vast majority of people want to come here for the right reasons. They want to live the American dream.鈥�

This isn鈥檛 entirely surprising, of course. Walker is quite obviously preparing to run for president in 2016, a possibility he likely wasn鈥檛 considering nearly as seriously some two years ago when these questions first came up, and the truth of the matter is that support for any form of immigration reform that involves what the tea party crowd considers to be 鈥渁mnesty鈥� for the 12 million or so undocumented immigrants estimated to be in the country is pretty much a deal breaker. Jeb Bush鈥檚 support for such reforms 鈥� and his continued insistence, even this past week at CPAC, that there will eventually have to be some kind of legalization for these people 鈥� is the main reason that he is rejected by the hard right. Bush鈥檚 political prot茅g茅, and possible 2016 rival, Marco Rubio was once a tea party darling after his win in the Florida US Senate race in 2010, but his star faded quickly two years ago when he became one of the most prominent Republicans to cross the aisle and support the Senate immigration reform bill. Indeed, Rubio finished worse in the CPAC Straw Poll than Bush himself did, which is perhaps the greatest indication of how far his star has fallen among the hard-right wing of the Republican Party thanks to his support for immigration reform. And that happened notwithstanding the fact that Rubio has since backed away from the Senate bill, has criticized the DREAM Act, and has opposed the president鈥檚 initiatives for temporary immigration relief, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). Given all of this, I suppose, Walker likely considered it to be in his interests to play it safe on immigration by backing the restrictionists rather than staking out the riskier pro-reform position taken by Bush and Rubio.

I鈥檓 often reluctant to criticize politicians on the flip-flopping charge because there isn鈥檛 necessarily anything wrong with someone who changes their mind. Should a politician, or anyone for that matter, be forced to stick with policy positions they took in the past just because they鈥檙e on the record? If that were the case, then public opinion would never change on any issue. Take the issue of same-sex marriage, for example. It wasn鈥檛 that long ago that the vast majority of Americans opposed the idea of same-sex marriage, as did the majority of politicians in both political parties. Over time, public opinion has changed on that issue and the public has become more accepting of the idea of marriage equality, which has also led politicians to do the same. President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden all opposed same-sex marriage and have since changed their position. The same goes for countless others. Are they to be denounced as 鈥渇lip-floppers鈥� because they changed their mind? That seems to me to send the wrong signal since we want people to change their minds when they are wrong.

Walker鈥檚 problem, of course, is that he clearly has changed positions on this issue and it鈥檚 hard to argue that he hasn鈥檛 done so for purely political purposes. Prior to backing away from his previous support for immigration reform, Walker had been receiving criticism from many on the right for his previous support for the idea and, heading into CPAC, it was seemingly one of the few marks against him from people on the right. Changing his position so blatantly and, at least so far, with little explanation for exactly why his previous support for some kind of legalization for undocumented immigrants changed, and, unless he鈥檚 able to, it鈥檚 hard to believe that it was for anything other than blatantly political reasons. That鈥檚 the kind of 鈥榝lip-flopping鈥� that it鈥檚 hard to defend.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.