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GOP governors try to sidestep immigration issue

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Like an unwanted guest, President Obama's impending executive order on immigration kept crashing the Republican governors' combined annual meeting and victory celebration.

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Like an unwanted guest, President Obama's impending executive order on immigration kept crashing the Republican governors' combined annual meeting and victory celebration.

For two days, the topic seeped into the seaside gathering via question after question from reporters - but it was not what the governors wanted to talk about.

Several said the president was using the issue to distract everyone from the midterm elections that gave the GOP clear majorities in the Senate and governors' offices alike. Govs. Rick Perry of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin said they might sue. "He's overreaching and abusing his power to do this," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said of Obama.

One of them flashed his famous tendency to bully or belittle a questioner. That would be Gov. Christie.

It's a tricky issue for him and the rest of the half-dozen Republican governors considering runs for president in 2016, and for the party as a whole. After Mitt Romney lost in 2012, GOP postmortems concluded that one reason he was wiped out among Hispanic voters was the party's hard line on undocumented immigrants.

With Latinos the fastest-growing group, many Republican strategists have concluded that if the party didn't change, it would be demographically doomed.

Jindal declined to say whether he favored deporting those in the country illegally, saying Americans would "deal compassionately and fairly" with undocumented people after the border was secured.

He spoke at a news conference with Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who are also considering presidential runs, as are Perry, Pence, and Christie.

Walker accused the media of "obsessing" on the issue. "This didn't just come about in the last two weeks," he said, adding that illegal immigration was not a major topic in most gubernatorial and Senate races. "You have fallen into the trap that the president of the United States has done to try and get you to divert your attention away from the real issues."

Kasich said he would prefer that Obama not issue the executive order and would have preferred one limited in time and scope so the president and Congress could negotiate a solution to the problem of up to 11 million undocumented immigrants.

"We can't move forward as a country if we're just fighting and questioning each other's motives," Kasich said. That echoed the moderate tone he struck Wednesday during a panel discussion among several governors.

Asked about a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, Kasich said, "I'm open to it, I'll tell you that." He added, "We have to think about what's going to bring about healing."

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, elected to succeed Christie as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said he, too, was concerned about Obama's unilateral step.

"I actually think the American people are ready for a real conversation on immigration," Haslam said. "My fear on the executive order is that it is going to blow a very unique opportunity we have right now to have that conversation."

But if Americans were ready for that conversation, the GOP governors were not ready to start it. As the nation waited to hear Obama on the subject, Haslam and the others who gathered here offered no specific alternative proposals and mostly ducked questions seeking the same.

Nobody ducked at more length than the outgoing RGA chairman. Ringed by reporters Thursday, Christie was asked whether he had an obligation to offer his own immigration reform plan. The question was "ridiculous," he said.

"Because I won't lay out my plan if I were president, that precludes me from criticizing the guy who asked for the job twice and was elected twice and who promised in 2008 that he would fix this problem when he had huge majorities in the Congress to be able to do it?" Christie said, his voice rising.

He said Obama had made the deliberate decision that "government-run health care" was more important than fixing a broken immigration system.

"I have no obligation to do the president's job for him," Christie said. "And it's every citizen's right to have the opportunity to criticize their president when they think they're wrong. Just because I'm a governor who may run for president someday doesn't take away my absolute right to do that."

Christie has previously skirted the topic, including during a September trade mission to Mexico, where he told reporters he would articulate a position "if and when I become a candidate for president." Said Christie: "Until that time, I have no role in the debate."

Stumping in Iowa this summer for Gov. Terry Branstad, Christie dismissed a question on immigration, calling it too complicated to discuss "in a parking lot in Marion," where reporters had gathered.

On Thursday, as Christie moved toward the ballroom exit, another reporter tried. "About immigration -."

"No," said the governor. "I'm not doing that anymore."