Republican presidential candidates on Sunday continued to wrestle with comments made by Donald Trump about Mexico and immigrants in the US.

Appearing on ABC, Rick Perry repudiated Trump’s criticism of his record on border security and said: “Donald Trump does not represent the Republican party.” The former Texas governor also called Trump’s remarks “offensive”.

The former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum told CBS that though he didn’t “like the verbiage [Trump] used”, he liked “the fact he’s focused on an issue that is important to American workers and legal immigrants”.

Mike Huckabee appeared on CNN. He chose not to either express support, as did Texas senator Ted Cruz in an interview broadcast on NBC – in which he said “I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration” – or issue a strong condemnation, as did Florida senator Marco Rubio on Friday.



The former Arkansas governor said: “Donald Trump needs no help from Mike Huckabee to get publicity. He’s doing a really good job of that.”

On Saturday, the 2012 candidate Mitt Romney and the frontrunner in the 2016 field, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, contributed to that publicity by condemning Trump.

Romney said: “I think he made a severe error in saying what he did about Mexican Americans and I feel it was unfortunate.”

Bush, campaigning on Independence Day in Merrimack, New Hampshire, said: “Trump is wrong on this … He’s not a stupid guy. Don’t think he thinks every Mexican crossing the border is a rapist. He’s doing this to inflame and incite and to draw attention, which seems to be his organising principle of his campaign.”

Trump issued a statement in response to Bush, a favourite target whose wife is Mexican. It read: “Today, Jeb Bush once again proves that he is out of touch with the American people.

“He doesn’t understand anything about the border or border security. In fact, Jeb believes illegal immigrants who break our laws when they cross our border come ‘out of love’.”

On Sunday, on Twitter, he alluded to Perry’s much-touted makeover when he said: “He needs a new pair of glasses to see the crimes committed by illegal immigrants.”

Trump made his original remarks at his campaign launch in New York, when he said: “[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists.”

Responses included condemnation by the governments of Mexico and Venezuela and Hispanic leaders in the US and a succession of terminations of business relationships with the property mogul and reality TV star, including actions by Univision, NBC, Macy’s and Nascar.

Trump has protested that he “loves Mexico”, while repeating and varying his charges. On Friday, he told Fox News the shooting dead of a 32-year-old woman by an illegal immigrant with an extensive arrest record in San Francisco was “yet another example of why we must secure our border immediately.

“This is an absolutely disgraceful situation and I am the only one that can fix it. Nobody else has the guts to even talk about it,” he said.

On CNN on Sunday, Huckabee discussed his views on immigration, if not the effect Trump’s comments might have on GOP electoral fortunes with Hispanic voters who backed Barack Obama in 2012. Trump is second to Bush in polls and is thus in position to qualify for the first debate, in Cleveland on 6 August.



Huckabee said: “What I’ve been doing is focusing on what my own views of immigration happen to be, without weighing in on this battle of whether we’re with Donald Trump or against him.



“I say some things very differently,” he added. “I say that every night I get on my knees and say thank you that I’m living in a country people want to break into, rather than one they’re trying to break out of.”

Huckabee praised the hard work of most immigrants to the US, who he said were “some of the most conservative, family-oriented and faith-based people I’ve ever witnessed.

“Are there some with nefarious goals?” he asked. “Yes, that’s why we need to secure the border.”

Perry also praised Hispanic Americans, who he said had served the US “from the Alamo to Afghanistan”.

Perry said Trump was “going to have to defend those remarks. I never will. I will stand up and say that those remarks were offensive.”