Kasich Dodges About His Opposition to Birthright Citizenship for Illegals

TAPPER: “I want to talk to you about immigration, specifically in 1993, you co-sponsored a bill in Congress that would take away the birth right citizenship that is the citizenship automatically given to babies born in the United States, even if they are born to undocumented immigrants. In 2010 when you were running for governor you reiterated your longtime support for ending birth right citizenship. Immigration a big issue on the campaign trail. Is that still your position?”
KASICH: “You know, let me tell you what I think we ought to do with immigration. First of all we ought to finish the fence. And even if special interests don't want it done we should get it done. The 12 million -- 11 or 12 million who are here we ought to find out who they are. If they've been law abiding over a period of time they ought to be legalized and they ought to be able to stay here. There are people who contribute to a lot to the United States of America. If you have violated the law, we're going to ship you out. And once that fence gets built, Jake, I don't -- I think we should make it clear, anybody who sneaks in, you're going back home. And in addition we need a guest worker program so that people can come in and work and be able to go back and support their family. That's how I feel about it. In terms of these people who brought - who were brought here, young children, you know, in our state they can get driver's licenses. We treat them with respect. But we need to get this thing fixed, and as you know, from your time in Washington, we're not getting it fixed because there's too much fighting and people are spending too much time being negative, instead of building a fence, getting through this, and moving on.”
TAPPER: “I appreciate that. Would ending birth right citizenship be part of this larger immigration approach?”
KASICH: “I don't think we need to go there. I think what I've outlined here is what we need to be doing.”