"If you want somebody who's pro-amnesty and pro-immigration, he's in the top 10 percent of Republicans"

Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, which advocates for tougher immigration laws, said this week that Ryan’s overall record on immigration-related bills “is a rogue’s list of pro-amnesty [positions].”

“If you want somebody who’s pro-amnesty and pro-immigration, he’s in the top 10 percent of Republicans,” Beck said in a phone interview Tuesday, noting Ryan’s past support for George W. Bush’s immigration overhaul, measures to legalize illegal-immigrant farm workers and others allowing illegal immigrant students to receive in-state tuition benefits…

Immigrant-rights advocates, meanwhile, have a decidedly different take. They say Ryan’s opposition to the DREAM Act — combined with his support for a 2005 bill that would have turned illegal immigrants from civil offenders to felons — is ample evidence that the Wisconsin Republican has abandoned the more lenient approach to illegal immigrants that marked his earlier years in Washington.

Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant-rights group, said this week that Ryan has “lurched to the right the way most of his party has.”