Rick Perry shifted his message Thursday on illegal immigration, blaming the federal government for its handling of an issue that has appeared to be the Texas governor's Achilles' heel as a GOP presidential candidate.
Perry has been forced to defend his decision as governor to extend in-state tuition breaks to illegal immigrants who have lived in Texas for three years or graduated from a Texas high school. Perry's primary competition, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has attacked Perry on the issue for "sounding like a Democrat."
Until this week, Perry's primary argument has involved the 10th Amendment, calling the choice to offer in-state tuition a state-by-state decision. Thursday, Perry shifted blame to the federal level, saying that his state's decision was only necessary because of the "lack of security" implemented by the federal government.
"There has clearly been a failure of our federal government. That's the reason that we're having to deal with issues like in-state tuition," Perry said on CNBC. "The federal government allowed them to come in with their lack of security. We decided in our state it was better to have those kids be educated. How to cure that is for the federal government to secure that border."
Perry added that immigrants will continue to be important to American society, "but we're a rule of law country" and the border needs to be secured.
The "three pillars" of border security Perry named are strategic fencing in metropolitan areas, boots on the ground and aviation assets to monitor rugged terrain.
Perry's comments Thursday mark a change in tone on the immigration topic, following an interview Perry gave Wednesday to Newsmax where he apologized for saying anyone who opposed his decision to educate the children of illegal immigrants “did not have a heart.”
“I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” Perry said in the previous interview.
"We're Republicans. We're supposed to be trying to fix things," Perry said on CNBC.
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