Rick Santorum, another in the long line of Republicans vying to be their party’s presidential candidate next year, says he has the strictest plan of any of his colleagues to deal with immigrants coming into the United States. This comes at a time when Donald Trump’s controversial stance on the issue continues to win him as many supporters as it does critics.
Santorum made the comments while touring Iowa, where he won the state’s caucuses back in 2012; however, he is well down in the polls even there. Santorum claims that Trump shares more with other candidates such as Jeb Bush than either he or the media would have people believe, with both supporting an increase in legal immigration.
By contrast, the former senator of Pennsylvania is making an important aspect of his candidacy a desire to curb legal immigration and reduce the number of undocumented immigrants. He believes that the wages of ordinary Americans are being suppressed by immigration, regardless of its legal status, as are job prospects for US-born citizens. Trump has been rising in the polls despite the backlash from the media since his stinging criticism of Mexican immigrants, with his refusal to back down from his comments winning support from Republican voters. New poll results released this week by Suffolk University reveal that 17% of Republican voters across the US support Trump, putting him in first place among his fellow candidates. Santorum was one of many who polled less than 2% of the vote.