The head of an immigration-reduction organization says one Republican presidential hopeful has dramatically improved his grade on immigration issues.

Until recently, Rick Santorum had received a "D-minus" on the immigration grade card compiled by Numbers USA. But Roy Beck, founder and president of the immigration think tank, says the former Pennsylvania senator has raised his grade to an "A-minus" based on some comments he made at a recent event in South Carolina.

Roche said she was also taking a closer look at former Sen. Rick Santorum, who received an A- grade from NumbersUSA, a group that champions reduced immigration to the United States. The group rated both Santorum and Romney "excellent" on opposing "Amnesty/Legalization," but said it could find no record of Romney supporting lower overall immigration levels, both legal and illegal. He received a C+.

Myrtle Beach voter Michael Comer, 60, who heads the group Grand Strand Citizens for Immigration Reduction, also said he would vote for Romney. He said he liked some of the ideas put forward by Ron Paul, the only candidate who has said that children of illegal immigrants should not be automatically granted citizenship if born on U.S. soil, according to NumbersUSA. But Comer said he thought some of Paul's other ideas about government were unworkable.

The school’s announcement has drawn some criticism from immigration hardliners in Colorado, including Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo, but others have said they are fine with school’s decision as it provides no preferential treatment to undocumented immigrants.

“I have no problem with,” said Roy Beck, the head of NumbersUSA, an organization that favors strict immigration policy. “I would not think it was a good thing if they were giving preferential treatment to illegal aliens over a student from Missouri or somebody from Peru who applied for a student visa, but this doesn’t seem like what they’re doing.”

Immigration seems set to play a large role in the primary. A group called Numbers USA has been running commercials that call on Congress to tighten immigration rules. A diverse cast of characters — white, black, Asian and Hispanic — ask, “Should Congress give new work permits to 1 million new legal immigrants again this year when 20 million Americans of all colors, national origin and religion are having trouble finding jobs?”

Numbers USA is going up on television and radio in South Carolina to push the presidential candidates to oppose immigration.

NumbersUSA announced on Tuesday that it will spend at least $100,000 on advertising before the South Carolina Republican primary on Jan. 21 in an effort to tie high unemployment levels to legal immigration.

Here in the U.S. our population problem is driven chiefly by immigration, both documented and undocumented. According to Jeremy Beck of Numbers USA, since 1990 immigration numbers have been higher than in any other period in U.S. history. Over the last two decades, immigration has averaged about 1 million people per year, or three times our historical average. U.S. population will more than double from 203 million in 1970 to 439 million in 2050 and immigration will cause 82 percent of all U.S. population growth between 2005 and 2050.

Another voice in the illegal immigration debate is NumbersUSA Director Roy Beck and he had this to say, “The chief difficulties that America faces because of current immigration are not triggered by who the immigrants are but by how many there are. The task before the nation in setting a fair level of immigration is not about race or some vision of homogeneous white America; it is about protecting and enhancing the United States’ unique experiment in democracy for all Americans, including recent immigrants, regardless of their particular ethnicity.”

The reduced-immigration activists also are turning to elections, facing their own congressional blockades. "The balance has shifted to educating candidates," said NumbersUSA President Roy Beck. "The leaders in Congress seem to be putting everything on hold until after the next election. It's ridiculous." Beck said he is hoping for a revolt among rank-and-file House Republicans, many of whom sympathize with his point of view, to force a floor vote on the E-Verify bill.

Beck and Sharry might not agree on much, but they converge on the idea that it's time to take their cause to the electorate because they're making very little headway in Congress. "What's the use of policy? There is no policy anymore," said Beck.

Why then are the conservative credentials of Messrs. Gingrich and Perry being questioned? Aren't their positions in line with the Gipper's? Ironically, it is their accusers who are not being true to conservative principles. Many echo the anti-immigration sentiments of such restrictionist groups as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies, which are anything but conservative. These groups are mostly led by population-control activists and radical environmentalists who agree with the absurd Malthusian premise that people are pollution.