As immigration reform continues to divide the candidates in the Republican presidential primary, Mitt Romney sent vague and seemingly inconsistent messages on the issue in a campaign swing through Florida Thursday.

In a gathering of reporters before his appearance at a Polk County Republican Party fundraising dinner, Romney said he oppposes the current reform package in the Senate, but wouldn’t say what it would take to fix it.

“I’m not here to describe language of a piece of legislation – I’m not a legislator, so I’m not going to give you legislative language,” he said when asked what the bill should say.

Romney said he would allow illegal immigrants “to apply for citizenship and permanent residency, but I would not give them an advantage relative to those who have already applied, relative to those who are staying in their home countries.”

But he didn’t explain how that application process would work so as to avoid giving illegal immigrants “an advantage.”

Romney also said any immigration bill must contain provisions to secure the U.S. borders and verify the legal status of job applicants.

In comments afterward, his press spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said under those circumstances, the number of illegal immigrants in the country would decline naturally, or “self-attrit,” as immigrants unable to get work went home.

In the past, Romney has appeared to support allowing illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship without having to leave the country first.

He has said he opposes rounding up and deporting the 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country, and has described previous versions of the current reform bill—the McCain-Kennedy bills—as “reasonable” and “quite different” from amnesty. You can find those comments, in a 2005 Boston Globe interview, here.

In 2006, he was quoted in another Massachusetts newspaper as saying, “I don’t believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country. With these 11 million people, let’s have them registered, know who they are. Those who’ve been arrested or convicted of crimes shouldn’t be here; those that are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process towards application for citizenship, as they would from their home country.”

But in the press conference in Lakeland Thursday, Romney denied that he has ever supported allowing a process for earned citizenship for illegal immigrants, criminals or otherwise. “I have not said that,” he replied.

Fehrnstrom said Romney didn’t take a position on the McCain-Kennedy bill in the 2005 interview, even while describing it as “reasonable,” and meant in his 2006 comments that illegal immigrants should go home before being allowed to apply for citizenship.

Just to add to the confusion, a GOP activist backing McCain, who’s a friend of Jeb Bush, has been quoted in news stories recently saying Bush is “disappointed” with Romney’s stance on the issue. But Bush himself was quoted in a St. Petersburg Times story as denying the reports.

That could matter because even though he hasn’t publicly taken sides on the race, Bush is widely perceived to be backing Romney, and would be one of Romney’s most important Florida supporters.

Romney didn’t respond in the press conference Thursday to a question about the supposed division between himself and Bush on the issue, and Bush didn’t respond to an email from the Tribune for comment.

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