Plymouth: Globe columnist talks immigration at Republican town committee meeting

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby spoke to the Plymouth Republican Town Committee at the Radisson Hotel last night. His focus was immigration.

Jeff Jacoby describes himself as free-market conservative columnist. But he may have surprised some of the 65 Republicans in attendance when he said he thinks the Republican party needs to think differently about immigration:

“I would like to see more Republicans take what used to be the Ronald Reagan approach; where you recognize that illegal immigrants who come here do so because they want to come here, work hard, build a little American dream for themselves–and for most of them there’s no legal way to do it. I’d like to see the law changed so they can come here legally.”

Jacoby spoke of his disappointment with Mitt Romney concerning this issue:

“I’m sorry to see that he’s gone from what used to be the rational sensible centrist position that he took to the position that we’ve all seen him take in this current Presidential race, of ‘let’s get all the illegals out of this country’. That’s not the way Mitt Romney used to talk.”

However, in a straw poll in which 50 of those present voted, Romney was the winner with 27 votes, Newt Gingrich came in second with 14 votes. Herman Cain and Rick Santorum got no votes.