No direct answer on immigration from Romney

BRUNSWICK, Ohio -- Mitt Romney is refusing to say that he would overturn President Barack Obama's new policy allowing some young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States.

The Republican presidential candidate was asked three times in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" whether he would overturn the executive order issued Friday if he's elected. He refused to answer directly.

"It would be overtaken by events," Romney said when pressed for the second time by moderator Bob Schieffer during the interview, which was taped Saturday while the former Massachusetts governor's bus tour stopped in Pennsylvania.

He said the order would become irrelevant "by virtue of my putting in place a long-term solution, with legislation which creates law that relates to these individuals such that they know what their setting is going to be, not just for the term of a president but on a permanent basis."

Romney, on a five-day tour of the Rust Belt, campaigned Sunday in Ohio. He attended a Father's Day pancake breakfast with two of his sons and five of his 18 grandchildren.

He told a rain-soaked crowd that the weather was a metaphor for the country and that "three and half years of dark clouds are about to part."

He planned two more stops in the state Sunday.

In the TV interview, Romney suggested that Obama's decision on immigration was motivated by politics. "If he felt seriously about this he should have taken action when he had a Democrat House and Senate, but he didn't. He saves these sort of things until four and a half months before the general election," he said.

Obama adviser David Plouffe, sent by the White House to four of the Sunday talk shows, contended that Obama's action, which appeals to Hispanic voters who are crucial to the president's re-election effort, was not "a political move."

The Obama administration said the policy change announced Friday would affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. Obama's move bypasses Congress and partly achieves the goals of the Democrats' long-stalled legislation aimed at young illegal immigrants who went to college or served in the military.

Romney's CBS interview was his first in more than a year with a Sunday talk show on a network other than Fox. It covered a range of topics, including health care, the European financial crisis and Romney's political future.

He insisted that he isn't worried about his own political future. "I don't have a political career," Romney said. "I spent my life in the private sector. I don't care about re-elections."

Schieffer asked, "So you're not saying you just intend to serve one term?"

Romney replied that for him "this is not about politics. This is not about did I win this or did they win this. This is about what can we do to get America right."