MIAMI, Florida — During an immigration roundtable at the conservative Hispanic Leadership Network conference, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez scolded those (primarily on the right) calling for the United States to adopt English as its official language.

Gutierrez, who served during President George W. Bush’s second term, singled out former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for criticism, telling the audience he “was surprised a little bit with the comment today of Speaker Gingrich of one government language.”

The former Commerce Secretary noted that adopting English as our official language wouldn’t be merely a symbolic measure, but would have ramifications for those who speak a different language because government documents would only be permitted to be printed in English. Currently, many government forms, from the census to election ballots, are often printed in multiple languages, depending on the needs of the community.

“Why not” allow government matters to be conducted in other languages, Gutierrez asked, rhetorically. “Why not?”

GUTIERREZ: We need more than one language in the sense of doing business with the rest of the world. So I was surprised a little bit with the comment today of Speaker Gingrich of one government language. What that means is that if you do the census, you can’t have a questioner in Spanish. Why not? Why not? We’re an international country. We do business around the world. The Chinese pick up a U.S. plan and they read it. We pick up a Chinese plan and we get dizzy. We need more people to… [applause]

Watch it:

Gingrich’s call to make English the official language follows his 2007 comments when he declared that Spanish was the “the language of the ghetto.”

Yet Gutierrez’s preferred presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is not squeaky-clean on the issue either. In fact, Romney’s desire to make English the official language is identical to that of Gingrich’s.

MIAMI, Florida — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been one of the most influential figures in immigration policy over the past few years, authoring the infamous anti-immigration laws passed in Arizona, Alabama, and South Carolina. This has made him highly controversial, but GOP front-runnner Mitt Romney touted Kobach’s endorsement. “With Kris on the team, I look forward to working with him to take forceful steps to curtail illegal immigration,” Romney said in press release earlier this month.

Some Hispanic Republicans have called on Romney to disassociatie himself from Kobach — the “dark lord of the anti-immigration movement” — warning his embrace will alienate Hispanic voters.

But when ThinkProgress tried to ask two key Romney backers, who also helped organize a major gathering of Hispanic Republicans here, if they worried about Kobach, we ran into a problem — they didn’t even know who he was. At the Hispanic Leadership Network conference Friday, where Romney spoke earlier, we spoke with former Senator Norm Coleman and former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who have both endorsed Romney and who both helped organize the conference as chairman of its main sponsor and co-chair of the conference itself, respectively.

Asked if he thought that Kobach’s association with Romney could hurt the GOP frontrunner, Gutierrez replied, “I don’t know Kris Kobach, sorry.”

When asked the same question, Coleman stalled for a moment before telling us, “I don’t know Kobach, to be honest.” When told who he is, Coleman replied, “I have no idea.” Watch Coleman’s response:

During Monday night’s debate, the two Republican presidential front runners voiced their support for a modified DREAM Act that covers only those undocumented immigrants who are willing to serve in the United States military, and not those who attend a college or university in pursuit of a degree.

Now, a Florida Republican has introduced a bill to do just that:

Inspired by Monday night’s Republican presidential debate over immigration, Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, filed a bill that would give young people who serve in the military — not college students — a path to U.S. citizenship.

“If somebody is willing to die for America, then certainly they deserve a chance at life in America,” Rivera said.

Rivera’s plan is called the Adjusted Residency for Military Service Act — the ARMS Act. It’s a variation on the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to some children of undocumented immigrants who were brought illegally to the United States by their parents.

The new push for a military-only version of the DREAM Act is a not terribly subtle attempt by the Republican presidential nominees to create a wedge between military DREAMers and the college student DREAMers who have been lobbying for the bill for years. Rep. Rivera says that he is introducing the bill because it is all that Congress will likely be able to pass, even though polls show the DREAM Act has overwhelming support from every demographic, including Republicans.

Romney, Gingrich and Rep. Rivera are also at odds with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who yesterday said that immigration was a “secret weapon for economic competitiveness,” a view shared by President Obama during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.