It was interesting to watch the machinations of the Republican candidate Mitt Romney in interviews with Telemundo and Univision, two American media outlets serving a Spanish-speaking audience.

Governor Romney has been clear about his concept of immigration reform — the veto of the Dream Act if it ever passes Congress, and a passive-aggressive effort to deny work and livelihood which would force some 12 million people (including millions of young native-born Latino US citizen children)  to “self-deport”.

I have made no secret of  my concern for the plight of our young Latino residents who despite their lack of status nonetheless view the United States as their only home, yet who have lived their whole lives in fear of deportation to some land that many of them have never seen.

They are growing up in the context of the negative noises which would label them as criminals for just being here.

It was for these young, long time residents that the DREAM act  was first proposed in 2001.  It is now 2012, a new generation of DREAMERS have emerged, and no legislative relief has been possible.

In June President Obama announced a two year moratorium  on deportations of young undocumented immigrants who match certain criteria previously proposed under the DREAM ACT, along with the possibility of renewal of this deferred status.

Telemundo’s Jose Diaz-Balart stated the question simply::

More than 82,000 young, undocumented people, they’re– they’re called “dreamers,” have already filed under the president’s deferred action plan. If you were president of the United States, would you keep that plan in place until you could get some form of immigration reform?

Gov. Romney refused the question multiple times, preferring to speak of some supposed immigration reform that he was sure to put in place — despite the unsuccessful efforts of many before him, including Republicans John McCain and former President George W. Bush.  Furthermore, Romney is clearly not an advocate of the McCain / Bush positions on immigration reform.

Treating TV journalist Jose Diaz-Balart and his Latino audience as imbeciles, Mr. Romney next attempted to redefine his use of the word “self-deportation” to mean that this was simply a policy to respect the wishes of any undocumented people who wished to leave.

The English language transcript was preposterous.  I can only imagine how foolish and insincere Gov. Romney sounded  after his words were translated into Spanish.

Clearly, there is little chance of losing something in the translation when there is nothing there to begin with.