Mitt Romney continues to duck, dodge, and evade on deporting DREAM Act kids

Mitt Romney continues to take the Fifth on whether he'd deport DREAM Act kids. During Romney's appearance on Sunday's Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer asked him five times whether he would repeal President Obama's new immigration policy to stop deporting law-abiding young people brought to the U.S. as children and every one of those five times, Romney dodged the question.

As Jed Lewison pointed out Friday, Romney's strategy is to refuse to say whether he would overturn Obama's policy because this is an issue that requires a long-term solution'but to simultaneously refuse to detail his own long-term solution. On Face the Nation, Romney was forced to really commit to that strategy of dual evasion:

What I would do I'd make sure is that by coming into office I would work with Congress to put in place a long-term solution for the children of those that have come here illegally, and I've said for instance that those who serve in the military I would give permanent residence to.

But would you repeal this?

Well, it would be overtaken by events if you will, by virtue of my putting in place a long-term solution with legislation which creates law that relates to these individuals such that they know what their setting is going to be not just for the term of a president but on a permanent basis.

Romney's other strategy is to insist repeatedly that Obama's move is a political one, with his key evidence being the insistence that Obama hadn't tried to do anything legislative on immigration in his first three and a half years in office. In fact, Obama did push the DREAM Act in Congress, but it was blocked by Senate Republicans in late 2010. Oh, and Mitt Romney has said he would veto the DREAM Act, so the whole "I don't have to say what I'd do in the short run because I would deal with this in the long run" posture is doubly bullshit.

Face the Nation's Bob Schieffer did a good job pushing Romney on whether he'd repeal the president's immigration policy. The next step is some intrepid reporter needs to push Romney equally hard on just what his vaunted long-term solution would be, and how his position now squares with his past promise to veto the DREAM Act.