NumbersUSA's Roy Beck Assesses Presidential Candidates On Immigration Issues

2008 Presidental Candidates	DEMOCRATS	REPUBLICANS	INDEPENDENT	CONSTITUTION	LIBERTARIAN
	Barack Obama	John McCain	Ralph Nader	Chuck Baldwin	Bob Barr
Assessing Overall Candidate Promises (See criteria below)
No amnesty — Attrition through enforcement pushes illegal aliens back home	abysmal	abysmal	fair	EXCELLENT	bad
Stop future illegal immigration	poor	poor	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
Reduce legal immigration — Protect Americans from mass foreign worker competitions, congestion & sprawl	abysmal	abysmal	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
Assessment of Past Immigration Actions in Political Office
Based on Congressional, Gubernatorial and Mayoral actions	abysmal	abysmal			EXCELLENT
Assessing Specific Legal Immigration Stances (See criteria below)
End chain migration	abysmal	abysmal	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
End visa Lottery	poor	bad	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
Control foreign worker numbers / protect U.S. workers	abysmal	abysmal	GOOD	EXCELLENT	fair
No citizenship for births to illegal aliens	poor	poor	poor	EXCELLENT	good
Assessing Specific ILLEGAL Immigration Stances (See criteria below)
Mandatory workplace verification	fair	poor	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
Punish employerswho hire illegal aliens	good	fair	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
Local Enforcement of federal immigration laws	bad	poor	poor	EXCELLENT	poor
Implement entry-exit system	poor	fair	poor	EXCELLENT	fair
More security at borders	fair	good	poor	EXCELLENT	gOOD
End sanctuary cities	bad	poor	poor	EXCELLENT	poor
Prohibit states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens	abysmal	poor	bad	EXCELLENT	poor
Prohibit in-state tuition to illegal aliens	abysmal	abysmal	bad	EXCELLENT	Good

SOURCES & EXPLANATIONS
ASSESSMENTS CHANGE WITH THE CANDIDATES: The NumbersUSA staff updates the candidate information pages every day. NumbersUSA Founder and CEO Roy Beck looks at those updates and adjusts his grading of the candidates based on the newest information of changes in candidate comments. .........

ROY BECK’S CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING: “I look at these candidates ONLY in terms of what they have done about immigration and what they are promising to do on the issue.

“I grade all these candidates on how well they promise to carry out the recommendations of two national commissions in the 1990s and on other widely accepted goals for reducing overall illegal and legal immigration.

“I know that citizens choose to support a candidate based on many issues and on character and on past experience. I don’t endorse candidates because I don’t consider all those other aspects of the whole candidate. But I do candidly assess how each of them stacks up on immigration issues.

“I give the most weight to an official statement of promises, unless the candidate has said or done something since stating the policy to cast doubt on the promise.

“Absent an official policy, I give considerable weight to recent public statements. I leave room for candidates to shift positions; I don’t forever label them based on past statements or actions. The point here is what a candidate is most likely to do in the future as President, not grade them on past performances. But when current statements are ambiguous, contradictory, less than enthusiastically embraced or non-existent, I use past actions to help assess.

"If a candidate has said or done something new that calls into question a rating in a category, we will place black question marks (? ? ? ?) until we have sorted out where the rating should be."

If a candidate has taken no stand and made no statements about one of the issues on the grid, I give a "poor" rating because the candidate has failed to respond in any way to a crucial aspect of the immigration problem.

Most of the campaigns have contacted us at NumbersUSA to contest one or more ratings, and to ask how they can get better ratings. Staffers of a number of campaigns have sought to assure us that their candidate is really better than he/she appears in public on a particular issue. We appreciate the information from the staffers, but until a stance shows up on the official website or in comments made in public by the candidates themselves, we won't change the rating.

“If you don’t like my assessment of a candidate because you think I have used faulty information, contact us with your information.  If you want your favorite candidate to get a better assessment from me, work to get that candidate to make better, more convincing promises on immigration.”