Perry Fights Back on Immigration: 'You Don't Have a Heart'

WALLACE:  Governor Perry, I'm going to ask you a question, so you don't need to respond to him, because you're going to get a full minute to answer your question, which is on directly this point. You're the candidate whose name, by a wide margin, came up most often in the questions being submitted to all of you candidates about immigration.

   Dave Hollenback (ph) of Arizona sent this "To date, it appears that you have not tried to stop the illegals from coming.  We have high unemployment and a considerable amount of jobs going to illegals. Are you going to exert an effort to stop the abuse of U.S. citizens by illegals?"

   Now, last year, more than 16,000 children of illegals, young people in Texas, took advantage of your in-state tuition rate.  Speak to that issue.  And just, generally, how do you feel being criticized by a number of these other candidates on the stage for being too soft on immigration, sir?

   PERRY:  Well, I feel pretty normal getting criticized by these folks, but the fact of the matter is this: there is nobody on this stage who has spent more time working on border security than I have.

   For a decade, I've been the governor of a state with a 1,200-mile border with Mexico.  We put $400 million of our taxpayer money into securing that border.  We've got our Texas Ranger recon teams there now.

   I supported Arizona's immigration law by joining in that lawsuit to defend it.  Every day I have Texans on that border that are doing their job.

   But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart.  We need to be educating these children, because they will become a drag on our society.

   I think that's what Texans wanted to do.  Out of 181 members of the Texas legislature, when this issue came up, only four dissenting votes.  This was a state issue.  Texans voted on it.  And I still support it greatly.

   (APPLAUSE)