Huckabee POTUS DREAMing?

Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) has been making the media rounds purportedly to publicize his new book "Gods, Guns, Grits and Gravy" (2015).  However, the PR campaign is laying a predicate for an all but announced run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

During an appearance  on "Meet the Press", Gov. Huckabee exclaimed: “You don't punish a child for something his parents did," regarding the children of illegal immigrants (a.k.a. DREAM Act kids).  

But when Gov. Huckabee addressed a crowd of Christian conservatives in Richmond, Virginia, he Gov. Huckabee tried to temper these sympathetic sentiments towards DREAMers with some red meat for borders, language and culture. 

Those clarifying comments sound sweet to conservatives, but to put it in homespun terms, isn't this after the barn door has already opened. Governor Huckabee is fond of telling a true story about an Arkansan DREAMer who went on to become high school valedictorian.  But how does he feel about the flood of undocumented migrants who were admitted last year under de facto amnesty and 94% of them never bothered to report to their Immigration hearings?  How does Gov. Huckabee feel about Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch ignoring established employment law so that illegal immigrants can work in America?

Governor Huckabee seems to have slightly refined his view on the DREAM Act from when he spoke with Laura Ingraham in 2010 in which he insisted that treatment of DREAMers should be a state issue.  Since the Supreme Court has ruled that the Federal Government has primacy on immigration issues, the Federal Government must enforce laws on the books regarding allegiance, employment and education for citizenship.

Immigration is going to be a flash point in the Republican race for President.  There are establishment proto candidates like former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) who embrace liberal immigration and former Governor Mitt Romney who has evolved and advocated that the GOP should swallow hard and succumb to the inevitable by passing comprehensive immigration reform.  On the other end of the spectrum, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) would neither cotton to an open borders immigration amnesty nor a DREAM Act which penalizes legal immigrants who played by the rules.  

It sounds like Governor Huckabee is trying to split the baby by allowing for illegal immigration accommodations yet advocating an aspirational secure the borders and invigilate immigrants.  That sounds like DREAMing in more ways than one.  

Punctuating  his immigration opinions before the Family Foundation, Governor Huckabee proclaimed:  “If that bothers you to the point that you’d say, ‘I’d never vote for you,’ then you’re never going to vote for me, because that’s something on which I will not recant. Gov. Huckabee's unequivocal utterance may be prophetic, considering the anti-immigration ardor in Iowa today.

H/T: Henry Payne