Immigration reform supporter Sen. John McCain says the GOP risks losing the White House next year if it doesn't wrestle with the contentious issue.
"The reality is, is that we are losing support in the Hispanic community," the Arizona Republican told reporters Tuesday,
The Hill reports.
"We need to address the issue. We need to do it in a constructive fashion, or we do not win the 2016 election."
But McCain's support could cause problems with his own re-election.
The veteran senator will probably face a primary challenge from either Arizona Republican Rep. Matt Salmon or state Sen. Kelli Ward "due to fact he’s abandoned conservative principles on so many major issues — immigration chief among them,"
Breitbart News predicts.
McCain moved to the right in his tough re-election bid in 2010, but now says any GOP White House contender better watch what they say in the immigration debate, declaring that one of presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s "biggest mistakes" in the 2012 race was his comment about illegal immigrants self-deporting.
Romney had said he supported "self-deportation, which is when people decide they can do better by going home because they can't find work here because they don't have legal documentation to allow them to work here."
McCain's defense of immigration comes a day after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who's mulling a bid for the White House,
told radio host Glenn Beck he supports limits on legal immigration.
"The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages," Walker said.
McCain said he worries that position makes the GOP look anti-immigrant,
Talking Points Memo reports.
"I do," he said, adding that "most statistics show that [immigrants] fill part of the workforce that are much needed."
"We have, and I’m a living example of, the aging population. We need these people in the workforce legally."
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