If elected, Mitt Romney says he won't deport illegal immigrants who were granted special visas allowing them to stay in the United States by an executive order President Obama signed.
"The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid. I'm not going to take something that they've purchased," Romney said, speaking to The Denver Post on Tuesday. "Before those visas have expired we will have the full immigration reform plan that I've proposed."
Romney promised to unveil his own immigration plan sometime in the two years before those visas expire.
Back in June, Obama enacted a program that allowed 1.7 million illegal immigrants to stay in the country for two years and receive work permits. The Department of Homeland Security has begun processing some of those applications.
The executive order signed by the president allows people under the age of 30 who were brought to the United States when they were under the age of 16 by illegal immigrant parents--the eponymous "dreamers" of the DREAM Act"--to stay in the country as long as they avoid legal trouble and graduate from high school.
At the time, Romney said Obama's actions were politically motivated--a play for Hispanic votes in swing states during a tight election.
Both candidates are after the Latino vote, but several polls continue to show Obama leading the demographic by a wide margin.
"I think the timing is pretty clear, if he really wanted to make a solution that dealt with these kids or with illegal immigration in America, then this is something he would have taken up in his first three-and-a-half years, not in his last few months," said Romney in June.
During the Republican primary debates, Texas Governor Rick Perry attacked Romney for his proposals on immigration, including Romney's use of the term "self-deportation"--making the lives of illegal immigrants so miserable that they choose to leave the country on their own.
In August, Romney was sticking to his previous position, advocating a more permanent solution to the immigration issue, though he proposed no specifics.
"I will lead a program that gets us to a permanent solution as opposed to what was done by this president, which was with a few months before an election he puts in place something that is temporary, which does not solve the issue," said Romney to Univision.
