Mike Huckabee said he stands by his view when he was governor of Arkansas that the children of illegal immigrants should receive the same educational opportunities as citizens, but added that he would revoke President Barack Obama's 2010 executive order granting legal status to such children.
"You don't punish a child for something his parents did," Huckabee said Sunday on
"Meet the Press."
He said that when he was governor a child who came into the country illegally with his parents at age 5 went through Arkansas schools as required by law and graduated as valedictorian. When asked whether the student should qualify for same scholarships as others, Huckabee said yes.
He said though he wants to control the borders better, "I don't know that we've ever been a nation that said if you're in the back seat of your car when your dad is speeding, we're going to charge you in the back seat for what your dad did up in the front seat."
But when pressed by host Chuck Todd if that meant he would let Obama's executive action stand, Huckabee said no.
"He didn't have the authority to do it," he said.
Huckabee said there is a lack of knowledge in the country as to what the Constitution says about how laws are made, and that includes judicial rulings allowing same-sex marriage.
"The courts can't make a law," he said. Even when they make a ruling, he said, there should be time for the legislative branch to craft a law to fit the ruling rather than to begin issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples the next day.
Huckabee also was asked about Common Core, which he once supported but now opposes. He said originally the nationwide education standards were supposed to apply only to language and math rather than the whole curriculum, and that's why he has changed his stance.
He quit his job hosting a weekend program on Fox News Channel earlier this month and is expected to run for president in 2016. Huckabee would not make an announcement Sunday, but said, "I think it's pretty evident that I'm moving in that direction."
In an appearance Sunday morning on
"The Cats Roundtable" on AM 970 in New York, Huckabee told host John Catsimatidis national security is America's top issue.
"No matter what the president says, the greatest threat to our safety and security is not climate change, it's Islamic jihadism," Huckabee said in refererence to Obama State of the Union address on Tuesday.
"Does he really believe that a sunburn is worse than a beheading?" Huckabee said.
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