Mar. 21, Feature - After comprehensive immigration reform failed in Congress last year, Sen. John McCain adopted a harder line on immigration. And his position has only moved further right as he tries to appeal to the strong anti-immigrant faction in the Republican party as the presumptive Republican nominee. Tanya Snyder has more about McCain's shifting positions.

Elections can do funny things to politicians. Take John McCain, who used to be a champion for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The immigration reform bill he co-sponsored with liberal Senator Ted Kennedy gave hope to Latinos rallying for their rights in the face of attacks from others in McCain's party.

But the Republican base was not impressed.

On the issue of illegal immigration, a position which – [loud boos]

The mere mention of his position on immigration drew boos from a crowd of conservatives in February. Conservative talk-show hosts derisively call him "Juan McCain." But despite all this, he is the last man standing in a primary race filled with anti-immigrant rhetoric. As his party's nominee, John McCain has to rally conservatives to the polls in November. And McCain seems to think that the way to do that is to take a stronger stance on border security and enforcement. His position began to shift in the leadup to the New Hampshire primary, when he began supporting an enforcement-first strategy.

"We will secure the borders first. As pres I will have border state governors certify that the borders are secure. And Sec. Chertoff said there are two million people in this country that have committed crimes. Those people have to be deported immediately."

And he doesn't talk much about a path to legalization anymore. Which isn't the same as amnesty, but just to be clear:

"Of course I have never ever supported amnesty, and never will."

When Tom Tancredo of Colorado quit the primary race just before the Iowa caucuses, he said he was satisfied that he had "Tancredo-ized" the other candidates, pushing them further to the right on immigration. In fact, all of them at some point in the campaign turned their back on previous immigrant-friendly positions. Former candidate Mike Huckabee got the endorsement of Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist, even though as governor of Arkansas, he supported higher education benefits for children of undocumented immigrants.

Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America's Voice, a new immigrant rights organization, says this shows how the Republican Party has united around an anti-immigrant agenda.

"It's a pretty radical shift in Republican Party; this past year when the immigration bill was defeated, it was the first time you've seen these extreme anti-immigrant forces fully embraced by a majority of Republicans."

Sharry cautions that as McCain courts the conservatives, he risks losing his Latino supporters, just as the Party in general has fallen out of favor even with conservative Latinos.

"The party of outreach to Latinos became the party of the hated Sensenbrenner bill that drove millions of people into the streets and drove millions of Latino voters away from the Republican party."

Latinos have emerged as a significant voting block in this election, and although they're not single-issue voters, immigration rights is a defining issue for them. John McCain, himself from a border state, has long enjoyed widespread support among Latinos. We'll see how his new hardline stance fares in November.