Just as Mike Huckabee releases a television ad that tries to emphasize the ways he would be tough on illegal immigrants, one of his Republican competitors is seeking to remind voters of the ways in which the former governor of Arkansas has been more lenient than other Republicans on the topic.

Mitt Romney, a Republican and former governor of Massachusetts, is planning to begin running negative television ads today in Iowa that highlight Mr. Huckabee’s record on immigration, according to The New York Times.

Mr. Romney’s ad starts by saying both men are “good family men” who oppose abortion, the newspaper reports. But it later continues, “Mitt Romney stood up and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, opposed driver’s licenses for illegals. Mike Huckabee? Supported in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. Huckabee even supported taxpayer-funded scholarships for illegal aliens.”

The ad, the Times says, serves to escalate “the warfare between the two Republican candidates as they scramble for support in the nation’s first nominating state.”