Mitt Romney has been playing with his Etch-a-Sketch when it comes to the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented children who attended school or joined the military. He said he would veto it during the primary when he needed to appeal to hardline conservatives, but then said wanted a Republican version of the bill almost immediately after the general election began.

The leading contender for such a bill comes from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a man many observers believe is also a leading candidate to be Romney’s running mate. Although Rubio has not released the full details of his plan, he describes it as a watered-down version of DREAM that will permit undocumented students to obtain temporary legal status while they study and more permanent status after they graduate.

Rubio’s apparent plan, however, isn’t even supported by Romney’s own immigration policy team. Outside of the Supreme Court hearing about Arizona’s harsh immigration law, S.B. 1070, ThinkProgress caught up with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s law and Romney’s “informal advisor” on immigration issues. Kobach said he wouldn’t stand for any version of the DREAM Act that provides any legal status to any undocumented person. He was quick to distance himself from any criticisms of Rubio specifically, but Kobach did make clear that any form of permanent residency is amnesty, and he doesn’t support that:

KOBACH: Amnesty would be giving any person who is here illegally lawful presence of any sort in an en masse way. You know, there are individual cases which are not amnesty, but when it’s done en masse to a whole category of people, then yeah that’s amnesty.

THINKPROGRESS: So there’s been a lot of talk, no specific language yet, about a Rubio DREAM Act.

KOBACH: I just don’t want to comment on a Rubio DREAM Act, cause I just don’t know what it is [...] and, you know, he says he doesn’t want it to be an amnesty so I’ll take him at his word and we’ll see.

TP: So, but if it does provide legal residency without citizenship, would you consider that amnesty?

KOBACH: Yeah.

TP: And so you wouldn’t support that at all?

KOBACH: Not if it provides legal residency en masse to people who are illegally in the country.

TP: Do you think if he does, that would disqualify him to be Vice President in your mind?

KOBACH: I don’t know, I mean, who knows.

Watch it:

If Rubio is a serious contender for the VP slot, he likely will have to water down his bill even more than he claims to fit the campaign’s hard line on immigration — Romney is already playing coy about Rubio’s DREAM Act. If Rubio’s bill won’t please Kobach, Romney is going to need to shake his Etch-A-Sketch again to keep up with his latest favorite’s immigration policy.

During the GOP presidential primary, Mitt Romney staked out the most extreme position on immigration of any Republican candidate. Romney even campaigned with his immigration policy adviser Kris Kobach, the author of Alabama and Arizona’s harsh immigration laws, on Martin Luther King Day.

Now that Romney is the presumptive nominee, he’s trying to soften his immigration rhetoric to win over Hispanic voters. The Romney campaign even tried to publicly downgrade Kobach from “adviser” to mere “supporter” yesterday — an effort that failed after Kobach refused to play along.

Nor is this the only example of Kobach refusing to let Romney etch-a-sketch away his harsh positions on immigration. After Romney said over the weekend that Republicans need to embrace a Republican DREAM Act to win over Hispanic voters, Kobach told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the former Massachusetts governor will not support any version of the DREAM Act that offers a path to legal status — like the GOP version Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) plans to introduce. And he added that no Republican should support such a proposal:

[Kobach] stated flatly that he didn’t think Republicans — or Romney — should, or would, support any version of the DREAM Act that provides undocumented immigrants with any kind of path to legal status.

If Romney sticks to this — and Kobach said he would — there’s very little room for him to moderate his approach to immigration. In addition to advising Romney on immigration, Kobach is a national GOP voice on the issue, suggesting the right would not permit any move of this kind.

“I’d absolutely reject any proposal that would give a path to legal status for illegal aliens en masse,” Kobach said. “That is what amnesty is. I do not expect [Romney] to propose or embrace amnesty.”

Details of Rubio’s proposed DREAM Act have not been announced, but the first-term senator has outlined a plan that would not offer a direct path to citizenship but would enable them to remain in the country legally. Despite his promise to veto the DREAM Act earlier in his campaign, Romney told a crowd at a private fundraiser that he wants a Republican DREAM Act to make the GOP the party of “opportunity.”

But if Rubio’s plan includes a path to legal status, or if Romney supports a plan that does, then Kobach said it would be an “unacceptable” proposal. “A path to legal status for someone who is here illegally is amnesty by definition,” he said. “It gives the alien what he has stolen.”

During the primary, when he only needed to appeal to hard right Republican voters, Mitt Romney promised to veto the DREAM Act, which provides young people who have lived much of their lives in the United States a path to citizenship. Now that Romney needs to appeal to Latinos in order to win the general election, however, he’s already breaking out his Etch-a-Sketch. This weekend he told a crowd at a private (but very audible) fundraiser that he would support a version of the DREAM Act.

This is a significant turnaround for Romney, who was extremely anti-immigrant for the bulk of the primary season. Indeed, Romney even campaigned with an anti-immigrant leader who has ties to hate groups and helped pen Arizona’s “show us your papers” bill — on Martin Luther King Day. But now, facing abysmal poll numbers among Latinos, Romney is changing his tune. “We’re going to be able to get Hispanic voters,” he said, “We’re going to overcome the issue of immigration”:

Mr. Romney was frank in both his policy prescriptions and his obstacles as he addressed donors. He said he expected Mr. Obama to use the immigration issue against him as both sides of the aisle pursue Hispanic voters, a key demographic group in 2012. Mr. Romney said he and other Republicans will have to make the case that they are the party of “opportunity.”

He said the GOP will have to propose its own initiatives to win support from Hispanic voters, such as a Republican version of the Dream Act. As offered by Democrats, the act offers a path to permanent residency for those illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors and serve in the military or earn a college degree.

In a sense, Romney is taking the right approach if he comes out in favor of DREAM: 91 percent of Latinos support the DREAM Act. It is likely, however, that Romney will only support a pale shadow of the real DREAM Act that enjoys such widespread support.

The leading Republican alternative to DREAM is currently being crafted by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). While real DREAM provides an eventual path to citizenship to students who were brought to this country and either attended college or joined the military, Rubio says that his watered-down DREAM Act will not, in fact, provide a path to citizenship.

If the Republicans rally behind a DREAM Act that does lead to eventual citizenship, it would prove an etch-a-sketch moment not just for Romney, but for Rubio, who has said that he would not vote for a full path-to-citizenship bill. If Romney’s proposal does not include a path to citizenship, then the half-hearted appeal for the Latino vote likely won’t suffice: Latino groups have deemed the watered-down bill the “DREAM Act without a dream.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has made it clear he wants to push for a GOP-backed DREAM Act that would give undocumented students legal status — but not citizenship — and now Republicans hope to use this watered-down version of the bill to win support from Latino voters. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) are also working on a bill like this, which is being kept under wraps and is expected to be unveiled if or when Mitt Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination.

Rubio told The Hill that he has nothing to announce about a non-citizenship DREAM Act, but said, “We’re working toward that and hopefully very soon.” While Rubio, Kyl, and Hutchinson are supposedly prepping a Republican plan, it’s worth noting that the original DREAM Act — to provide citizenship to undocumented students if they meet certain requirements — was a bipartisan plan that had support from GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch (UT) and John McCain (AZ).

Now if Rubio introduces the legal-status-only plan, it will likely be little more than posturing and doubtful to make it far because Republicans like Rep. Lamar Smith (TX), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, are categorically opposed to the DREAM Act and it is doubtful Democrats would support creating a permanent underclass of immigrants. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed out that Republicans have already opposed this measure too, which would impose a class system for immigrants:

At an event on Capitol Hill, Reid cautioned that if Republicans offer a new DREAM Act, it will be a watered-down version of the bill most Republicans opposed when it came up for a vote last year. [...]

[G]roups that advocate for immigrants are skeptical of reforms that fail to grant a path to citizenship.

“Any proposal that is put on the table as to the fate of these children, who are in all consideration American, should be measured by what place they’re going to have in our society,” said Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration at the National Council of La Raza.

Martinez said creating “a class of nation-less people” would not be good for the country.

Earlier this month in an interview with Geraldo Rivera, Rubio teetered between his opposition to the current DREAM Act, which would provide citizenship, and trying to lay out a plan that would appeal to Latinos. “You can legalize someone’s status in this country with a significant amount of certainty about their future without placing them on a path toward citizenship,” he argued.

But his plan would force potentially millions of undocumented students to become non-voting residents of their home country if they were only given legal status in the U.S. After the extremely anti-immigrant views that the Republican presidential candidates have staked out during the primaries, a plan to create a system of second-class citizenship is not likely to be what Latino voters are looking for from the Republican party.

Senator Marco Rubio missed the mark on the DREAM Act today when he said that he’d consider offering a path to legal status, but not citizenship, for undocumented students. As a Latino Republican, Rubio has been criticized for his stance against the DREAM Act, which in its original form would permit students who had completed high school and either gone to college or joined the military, a path to eventual citizenship.

During a radio interview with Geraldo Rivera today, Rubio teetered between defending his current opposition to the DREAM Act and trying to find a way to appease Latino voters who will prove an important demographic for Republicans during the election season. Rubio delved into his new position on the DREAM Act:

The DREAM Act, as it is currently structured, has a series of problems that not only denies it the support that it needs, but I think would be counterproductive to our goal of having a legal immigration system that works. … It could be expanded to millions of people, which is problematic. But I do think that there is another way to deal with this. And I think that one of the debates that we need to begin to have is there is a difference between citizenship and legalization. You can legalize someone’s status in this country with a significant amount of certainty about their future without placing them on a path toward citizenship. And I think that is something that we can find consensus on and it is one of the ways to address the issue of chain migration.

Rubio’s suggestion for a DREAM Act would mean that potentially millions of kids who grew up in the United States without the right papers would be forced to be non-voting residents of their home country. Rubio may be using the rhetoric of defending Latinos against right-wing attacks, but the Republican policies don’t play out well for Latinos, specifically on the DREAM Act. The Republican presidential candidates are running on extreme immigration policies, and it would take a lot for Latinos to regain trust in the party. Offering a path to second-class citizenship is not exactly the olive branch Latinos are looking for.

MESA, Arizona — Approximately 40 undocumented students and supporters rallied outside the Arizona Republican presidential debate on Wednesday to protest the candidates’ opposition to the DREAM Act.

The DREAM Act would allow certain youth to apply for residency and citizenship after graduating from high school and completing two years of college or the military. It passed the House of Representatives in 2010 and received a majority of votes in the Senate, but failed due to a Republican filibuster.

All four remaining GOP presidential contenders oppose the DREAM Act for undocumented students. (Newt Gingrich supports it only for those who enter the military.) Most notably, Mitt Romney pledged to veto the DREAM Act if elected president.

ThinkProgress spoke with a few of the protestors in-between chants of “veto Romney, not the DREAM Act!” and “up, up with education, down, down with deportation”. Erika Andiola singled out Newt Gingrich for criticism, saying that as “an undocumented person, I don’t want to serve the country in the military, I want to serve this country as a lawyer.” Dulce Matuz told ThinkProgress about the difficulty she endured enrolling at Arizona State University as an undocumented student. Though she’d lived in Arizona for years, her immigration status precluded her from paying the normal in-state tuition rate of $2,500 per semester; instead, her and her family were charged $8,500 per semester.

Watch highlights from the rally: