The simplest way of determining what Governor Scott Walker thinks on immigration policy is to listen to what he says.

But it seems that both the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions like what they’re hearing from Walker in private conversations . . . and Moore and Sessions have quite different philosophies on immigration.

Here’s how Moore characterized his conversation with Walker to the New York Times:

Moore said he had become concerned about Mr. Walker’s stance in recent weeks, but was reassured after a phone call with the Wisconsin governor.
“He said, ‘I’m not going nativist; I’m pro-immigration,’” Mr. Moore recalled of the conversation.
(Mr. Walker’s spokeswoman, Ms. Strong, said he was “not for amnesty” and believed the border must be secured before any conversation begins about a pathway to legal status.)
But Mr. Moore also said he was not convinced that Mr. Walker was quite the immigration hawk as he may appear now. Rather, he called the governor’s positioning “a work in progress.”

For perspective, here’s Moore writing about immigration in the Wall Street Journal in 2013:

[Milton Friedman’s] point was that as long as immigrants are attracted to the U.S. for jobs and economic opportunity, they are contributors—but not necessarily so if the welcome mat comes with government benefits that are paid for by taxpayers. If they cannot gain access to the entitlement state, Friedman said, the country benefits.
Republicans and conservatives might want to coalesce around a position of tight welfare and generous immigration rules. That is something Milton Friedman would no doubt regard as the ideal outcome.

Some conservatives might be happy with “tight welfare, generous immigration” policies, but that’s not the attitude of Sessions, who is not just concerned about illegal immigration, but also contends that the U.S. policy that brings in roughly 1 million legal immigrants per year needs to change, too. Sessions wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, “Legal immigration is the primary source of low-wage immigration into the United States. In other words, as a matter of federal policy — which can be adjusted at any time — millions of low-wage foreign workers are legally made available to substitute for higher-paid Americans.”

Back in May, I wrote how Walker was citing Sessions in his comments on immigration, and sounding a lot more like the senator: “The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal-immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages,” Walker told Glenn Beck on April 20. “It is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today, is what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that to be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.” Sessions staff said Walker and their boss had talked, and “had a good conversation,” but didn’t want to discuss their conversations in detail.

Is it possible to put together an immigration policy proposal that pleases both Sessions and Moore?