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 "It's tough, but I also think it's fair, giving people 120 days to go back and then start the process all over," the former Arkansas governor said Friday. "People will say,
'Well, how will they go back?' Well, they got here. They'll figure out the same way they got here to go back."
Huckabee said he would have a border fence in place by July 2010 and defended his plan to send illegal immigrants home before they could apply for U.S. citizenship. Those who did not return home within four months would be deported and have to wait 10 years before they could legally re-enter the country, he said.
"Everyone would benefit if we had a completely legal process. The proposal is not to keep people from coming here. It's to make sure when they do that we know who they are and where they are," Huckabee said.
His proposal is similar to those of several of his GOP rivals, though in the past he has been more forgiving of some immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally. As Arkansas governor, Huckabee attempted to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for scholarships and in-state college tuition.
Huckabee defended that Arkansas effort at a debate last month: "In all due respect, we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country than that."
In addition to installing surveillance cameras along the border, his plan would punish employers who hire illegal immigrants as well as eliminate the visa lottery system and admission preferences for brothers and sisters of citizens.
His plan quickly drew criticism from a spokesman for rival Fred Thompson, Jeff Sadosky, who said the proposal "contradicts everything he did as governor." He pointed out Huckabee denounced a 2005 raid on illegal immigrants at an Arkansas poultry plant and gave $1,000 in state funds to help children whose parents were arrested.
Meanwhile, a nationwide AP-Ipsos poll released Friday showed Huckabee in second place among GOP candidates, riding support from evangelicals, Southerners and conservatives.
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 "I can understand a lot of it in the South. People in the South want to know someone understands SEC (Southeastern Conference) football and knows what WD-40 and duct tape will do," Huckabee said. "But from the rest of the country
- even if they don't know what duct tape and WD-40 will do - they certainly do know they want a president who has had a struggle, who has not just had life handed to him."
During a stop in Charlotte, N.C., the former Southern Baptist preacher said he won't discuss the role of women in the ministry. Those issues, he said, aren't relevant to the presidency.
Huckabee praised Mitt Romney for opening up in a speech Thursday about his Mormon religion, but said he won't discuss controversies in Southern Baptist denominations.
"Sometimes the questions get a little laborious when they start asking you about intricate, nit-picky things of church doctrine that's probably not all that relevant to being president," Huckabee said.
Separately, the Club for Growth, which has been criticizing Huckabee for his tax policies while governor, plans to launch an ad against him Monday in South Carolina, Iowa and nationally on Fox News Channel. The $175,000 ad depicts a heavier Huckabee addressing the Arkansas Legislature in 2003, declaring his support for a variety of possible taxes, including a tax on tobacco, a surcharge on the income tax, a sales tax or a hybrid of all those. Huckabee has said he had little choice because the state faced court-ordered spending increases and rising costs of federal entitlement programs.
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Associated Press writers Libby Quaid in Des Moines, Iowa, and Ieva M. Augstums in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report.
[Associated
Press; By BRUCE SMITH]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
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