Gingrich mocks Romney's 'self-deportation' solution to illegal immigration, Romney swings back

Though polls indicate former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is out of favor with Latino voters, the presidential hopeful is confident he'll win the demographic over, he said in an interview on Spanish-language television Wednesday.

"I have a hunch by this fall we may do better than any Republican except maybe Reagan," Gingrich told anchor Jorge Ramos during an interview with Univision Wednesday morning.

Based on a Univision poll released Wednesday, though, only 24 percent of Latinos across the country view Gingrich favorably. By comparison, 28 percent view Mitt Romney favorably and 72 percent like President Barack Obama. When asked which candidate they would vote for in the Republican primary election, 25 percent of Latino voters picked Romney, 16 percent chose Gingrich, 9 percent selected Ron Paul and 4 percent said Rick Santorum.

Gingrich slammed Romney for having a lack of concern for illegal immigrants' "humanity" during the Univision interview, The Wall Street Journal reported. He called Romney's suggestion that undocumented immigrants would "self-deport" back to their home countries if job opportunities dried up a "fantasy."

In an interview later in the day with Univision, Romney accused Gingrich of pandering to Latino voters.

"The speaker supports self-deportation," he said. "Unfortunately for him these are things he's already spoken about and he's spoken about them in favor. I recognize that it's very tempting to come out to an audience like this and pander to the audience and say what you hope the audience will want to hear. But frankly I think that's unbecoming of a presidential candidate and I think that was a mistake on his part."

Gingrich's campaign has been running ads in Florida that accuse Romney of being "anti-immigrant," but after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., spoke out against the ads Wednesday, Gingrich's campaign agreed to take them off the air, according to the Miami Herald.

"This kind of language is more than just unfortunate," Rubio said. "It's inaccurate, inflammatory and doesn't belong in this campaign. The truth is that neither of these two men is anti-immigrant. Both are pro-legal immigration and both have positive messages that play well in the Hispanic community."

In the past, Gingrich has said he believes undocumented immigrants who have come to the country recently and have no ties to the country should be deported but takes a softer stance toward people who have been living and working in the United States for an extended period of time.