(Note: Until recently, Babeu served as co-chair of Romney's Arizona campaign. Babeu resigned from that post after New Times published allegations that the sheriff threatened to have a Mexican ex-boyfriend deported. See "Firestorm.")
It's worth pointing out that though Romney has vowed to veto it should he become president and it reaches his desk, the federal DREAM Act is the least controversial of all immigration proposals, outside the far right-wing echo chamber.
Stephen Lemons
Mormon pals Pablo Felix (left) and Tyler Montague embrace the LDS church's spirit of diversity.
Stephen Lemons
An LDS-sponsored billboard in Mesa, part of the church's multimillion-dollar "I'm a Mormon" PR campaign.
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From Gallup to Rasmussen, polls consistently have shown that a slim majority of Americans favor some version of the DREAM Act. Among Latinos, the numbers are much higher. A 2012 poll by Latino Decisions found that Hispanics supported the legislation by 85 percent. Another, done by the Pew Hispanic Center in 2011, had 91 percent of Latinos supporting it.
But Romney barely has budged on the issue, despite pressure from some in his own party. In a GOP debate in South Carolina, he labeled the DREAM Act "a mistake." He promised he will not do anything that "opens up another wave of illegal immigration."
At a fundraiser in New York in January, Romney seemed to seal his anti-DREAM Act stance in concrete when an undocumented 19-year-old woman approached him.
Trying to shake his hand, she informed him she was in the country illegally, asking Romney about the DREAM Act and telling him that she has a 4.0 grade point average in college.
"That's wonderful," he said, according to the Huffington Post, which posted a video of Romney repeating his pledge to veto the legislation before getting hustled away by his handlers.
It's difficult to tell from the video, but the woman claimed Romney jerked away his hand from her as soon as she identified herself as undocumented.
Later, during a GOP debate in Florida, a state that's close to 23 percent Hispanic, Romney tweaked his DREAM Act position ever so slightly to match that of South Carolina primary winner Newt Gingrich.
"I would not sign the DREAM Act as it currently exists," Romney told the crowd. "But I would sign the DREAM Act if it were focused on military service."
That's not good enough for Dulce Matuz, an undocumented activist with the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, who along with several other demonstrators protested Romney's recent rally at Mesa Amphitheatre, two weeks before Arizona's GOP primary (as this story is published, the Tuesday primary is five days away).
While erecting a giant banner outside the amphitheater that read, "DREAM ACT NOW," she explained that she came to this country from Mexico when she was 9 to be reunited with her mother.
Since then, she's gone on to graduate from ASU with a degree in electrical engineering, part of the time paying out-of-state tuition, because of Arizona's Prop 300, which bars the undocumented from receiving in-state tuition rates or any public financial assistance.
"I don't want to join the military," Matuz says, "but I do want to use my knowledge to be an engineer in the United States."
Asked about the incident with the New York DREAMer, she figured Romney for a coward.
"I think Mitt Romney actually is afraid to talk to DREAMers, because he knows [supporting the DREAM Act] is the morally right decision to make," she said.
Before joining fellow DREAMers — who later could be heard chanting "Veto Romney, not the DREAM Act" whenever Romney paused during his stump speech — she remarked that, at 27, time was running out for her:
"If the DREAM Act doesn't pass in the next couple of years, I probably won't be eligible for it."
Basking in the adulation of a nearly all-white Mesa crowd, Romney barely mentioned immigration, remarking mostly on his experience as a businessman and a governor, and offering feel-good paeans to the greatness of America, punctuated by partisan jabs at President Barack Obama.
But he did offer one example of his steadfastness in opposing illegal immigration, noting that while Massachusetts governor he signed an agreement with the federal government, allowing state troopers to apprehend illegal immigrants.
"We made sure we enforced immigration laws empowering our state police to have the capacity to work with ICE to get those who are here illegally out of our state," he said, prompting cheers.
It probably would have spoiled the applause line for Romney to further explain that his 2006 move was roundly criticized by the Massachusetts press as pandering on the issue in anticipation of his bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.
Or to point out that he was in his last month of office when he signed the agreement. Incoming Democratic Governor Deval Patrick rescinded the plan after taking over, following the lead of police chiefs and civil rights advocates who criticized the agreement as counterproductive and possibly leading to claims of racial profiling.
Another uncomfortable point that Romney would never raise on his own is that the Boston Globe twice caught him using a landscaping company at his 2.5-acre Belmont, Massachusetts estate that employed illegal immigrants.
In 2006, about two weeks before Romney signed the above-mentioned pact with the feds and just as he was readying to leave office and run for president, Globe reporters broke the story, interviewing some of the Guatemalan illegals who toiled on Romney's property.
