Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Sunday repeatedly refused to say if he would dismantle a recently-announced Obama administration policy that allows certain young undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S.
During an interview on CBS, host Bob Schieffer asked the candidate if he would repeal the order.
"Well, let's step back and look at the issue," Romney replied. "First of all, we have to secure the border. We need to have an employment verification system to make sure those that are working here in this country are here legally. And then with regards to these kids that were brought in by their parents through no fault of their own, there needs to be a long-term solution so that they know what their status is."
"But would you repealed this?" Schieffer pressed.
"Well, it would be overtaken by events, if you will, by virtue of my putting in place a long-term solution with legislation that creates law that relates to these individuals such that they no what their setting is going to be," Romney explained.
"I don't want keep on about this, but just to make sure I understand, would you leave this in place while you work out a long-term solution or would you just repeal it?" the CBS host asked again.
"We'll look at that setting as we reach that," Romney insisted. "My anticipation is that I would come into office and say, we need to get this done on a long-term basis, not this kind of stopgap measure. What the president did is he should have worked on this years ago. If he felt seriously about this he should have taken action when he had a Democrat House and Senate, but he didn't."