GREENVILLE, South Carolina — Standing in front of a statue of long-time South Carolina Sen. and former Vice President John C. Calhoun, Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R) endorsed the idea that states should be able to nullify federal laws they don’t like at a press conference at the South Carolina state capitol on Tuesday.

In 1833, Calhoun became one of the first American politicians to attempt nullification when he led an effort to nullify a federal tariff that South Carolina opposed. Thirty years later, nullification played a significant role in the start of the Civil War when multiple states, South Carolina included, attempted to nullify federal laws about slavery.

Despite this checkered past, Paul said nullification “would be very good” to have in practice today because it would reduce the size of the federal government:

KEYES: We’re holding this conference in front of the statue of John C. Calhoun. What role do you his beliefs playing in politics today, particularly nullification?

PAUL: Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel comfortable right now pretending I can analyze everything he believed in and everything I believe in, so I think I’m going to beg off on that. But if he was a strict Constitutionalist and a states’ rights person, I’m sure that I would have a lot of agreement with him.

KEYES: Do you think nullification is still a valid political argument in society today?

PAUL: Certainly I think it is. And the Northeast states were the first ones to talk about nullification and also — I think nullifying laws, even if we never used it, to have it available would be very good. I think nullification would be a way to restrain the federal government. [...] I think nullification would be a very good principle. I think it probably wouldn’t be used that much, but our federal government would be much smaller than it is today had that principle been more clearly embedded in our Constitution.

Watch it:

This isn’t the first time Paul has endorsed nullification, but doing so in a state where nullification movements led to Civil War makes it particularly noteworthy. And while he claims it was “embedded” in what the drafters of the Constitution “understood,” the actual text they wrote seems to read differently.

The Constitution states clearly that Acts of Congress “shall be the supreme law of the land…anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding” — meaning states do not reserve the right to void laws they don’t like.

Despite its blatant unconstitutionality and disturbing historical connotations, nullification has seen a resurgence in popularity among right-wing politicians who oppose laws ranging from health care reform to federal light bulb standards.

An undocumented student confronted Mitt Romney about his opposition to the DREAM Act in New York yesterday, where the GOP front-runner was in town for a fundraiser. Romney has said he would veto the legislation, which would allow a small number of top-tier undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public universities.

Lucy, who was born in Peru and brought to the U.S. when she was 10, told Romney, “I didn’t come here illegally, and I have a 4.0 GPA.” Romney replied, “that’s wonderful,” but still assured her that he would veto the legislation that Lucy described as “my dream.” Romney staffers then quickly stopped the exchange.

Watch it, via the advocacy organization DRM Capitol Group:

Lucy reported that Romney supporters snickered at her and told her to “go back to Mexico,” even though she wasn’t born there.

The GOP primary has been marked by anti-immigrant rhetoric, and a recent Pew Hispanic Center poll showed Romney losing Hispanic voters to President Obama by a 3:1 margin, far worse than John McCain did in 2008.

While neighboring Arizona keeps its notorious anti-immigrant law on the books, New Mexico may be taking another path. State Sen. Steve Fischmann (D) is proposing a guest worker plan to let undocumented immigrants work legally in the state. If immigrants can prove they have lived in New Mexico for the past year and pass a background check, they could get a worker’s permit and legal status.

Fischmann told a local TV station that he is pushing the guest worker plan because current immigration policy is not working:

“The feds are failing us,” said Fischmann. “We make lawbreakers out of everybody with our current immigration policy whether you’re an employer or someone trying to get a job.”

Fischmann said about six percent of New Mexico’s workforce is undocumented, working mainly agricultural jobs.

“It really strives to keep immigrant families together,” said Fischmann. [...]

But the idea seems to be going nowhere fast.

“To try to set up a state guest worker program is doomed to failure,” said Rep. Dennis Kintigh, R-Roswell.

Kintigh said a guest worker program would be giving amnesty to thousands of immigrants who have broken federal laws.

The federal government would have to approve Fischmann’s plan, and before that could happen, the New Mexico legislature would have to pass the bill. The legislative agenda is set by the governor, and Gov. Susana Martinez (R) has not commented on the proposal except to say that she thinks immigration reform is a federal issue.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signed into law a guest worker plan that allows undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements to have a state-issued permit to work in Utah. And California may consider its own version of the Utah law. Given the important role immigrants play in the U.S. economy and military, these state guest worker plans are helpful measures to let more people actively participate in the workforce.

Over the decade since the attacks on September 11, the U.S. armed forces have signed more than 70,000 non-citizen recruits, and those recruits have stayed in longer than their citizen counterparts during a time when the military had trouble signing enough recruits and relaxed its standards to include more people.

According to CNA, which studied attrition data from the Defense Manpower Data Center, only 4 percent of non-citizens have been discharged within three months of entering active service, compared to 8.2 percent of ctizen enlistees. After three years, 16 percent of non-citizens have left before completing initial service oblications, while 28 percent of citizens have. And the gap increases at four years, with 32 percent of citizens having been discharged yet only 18 percent of non-citizens. And CNA analysts found that the results do not change when adjusted for age, demographic, or are broken out by branch of service:

“These findings are consistent with the anecdotal evidence we gathered in our interviews of recruiters and non-citizen recruits,” wrote researchers Molly F. McIntosh and Seema Sayala.

“The interviews revealed that, relative to citizen recruits, non-citizen recruits generally have a stronger attachment to serving the United States, which they now consider to be ‘their country,’ and (they) have a better work ethic.”

Because the lower attrition rate would help the military save on recruiting and training costs, the CNA report recommends that the military branches create strategies to recruit more non-citizens, especially as the economy improves and recruiting becomes more difficult. And with falling fertility rates in the U.S., “the only source of net growth in the U.S. recruiting-age population is projected to be immigration,” according to CNA’s report.

Immigrants can enlist if they have legal permanent resident status, the education equialent to a high school diploma, and can speak acceptable English. And in July 2002, President George W. Bush signed an executive order to make any non-citizen recruit eligible for U.S. citizenship after one day of honorable service during a time of war. Without citizenship, members cannot gain security clearance, limiting the enlisted slots they can fill.

CNA’s statistics underscore what a key role immigrants have in the U.S. military. And while the report did not cover potential effects of the DREAM Act, it highlights how helpful the DREAM Act — which provides a path to lawful residence for undocumented immigrants who serve in the military — would have been for military recruiting by opening up a larger pool of qualified potential applicants. Rather than trying to discourage immigration or barring paths to citizenship for people who want to serve their adopted country, lawmakers and military officials should take this as an opportunitiy to only increase recruitment of immigrants and let them become U.S. citizens.