So, Rick Perry is sorry he called anti-immigrant facets of his own base heartless for not believing children brought to America by their parents should be allowed to attend colleges near their homes at the in-state rate.
What a difference five hours makes.
Perry adviser Ray Sullivan sounded a non-apologetic tone Wednesday morning on MSNBC when asked if Perry stood by his comments from the last presidential debate (emphasis added):
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.
Here’s Sullivan from Chuck Todd’s Daily Rundown:
TODD: The heartless comment in particular, it’s that Governor Perry said you don’t have a heart if you’re against this. Does Governor Perry — does the campaign regret that remark?
SULLIVAN: No. The fact of the matter is that the state of Texas does not subsidize. Every student in Texas who is a resident for three years, who’s graduated from a Texas high school and who is admitted to college can pay in-state tuition. This is a residency issue. These are students, kids who have been here for a long time, and that’s a decision the legislature made in 2001, ten years ago, with just four dissenting votes.
Here’s video of that:
Just a few hours later, Perry was reaching out to the Republicans he upset at the debate.
“I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” he told Newsmax. “In Texas in 2001 we had 181 members of the legislature – only four voted against this piece of legislation – because it wasn’t about immigration it was about education.”
