This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, August 15th, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Paul Ryan's budget gets a great deal of attention, but where does he stand on other big economic issues for

example immigration

Alex Narasta is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute he discusses Ryan's

background on immigration.

Barack Obama announced, I guess, sort of a de facto dream act, and Mitt Romney by way of being critical without disagreeing with the President,

said in some ways, this doesn't go far enough when Mitt Romney, of course, had previously

opposed many elements of the Dream Act.

Paul Ryan is known as a budget hawk, whether that reputation is deserved or not is another

question, but where is he on immigration?

Well, to begin with the Dream Act, he's pretty opposed to it.

He likes the idea of a touchback provision for unauthorized immigrants,

meaning that they have to go back to their home country

and apply for legal residency, citizenship, a green card from abroad.

So that's where he stands on that issue.

That seems pretty inefficient as a process for getting skilled workers into the United States.

Paul Ryan's support of the touchback provision also is in conflict with some of his other opinions about

immigration because he understands how complex and difficult the system is. He

knows there isn't a simple line that you can get into that everybody has a chance

of the shot at the American dream.

And he knows this because he's in support of things like radically expanding guest worker

...