Immigration Divides Romney and Giuliani

Republican presidential hopeful former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during the Iowa Straw Poll, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2007, in Ames, Iowa. Romney accuses former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani of making his city a haven for illegal immigrants. Giuliani denies it, insisting he cracked down on lawlessness of every kind. It's the first real clash between two leading Republican candidates who are vulnerable on immigration, a volatile issue that infuriates Republican conservatives who hold sway over primary elections. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (Charlie Neibergall - AP)

In Aiken, S.C., on Tuesday, Giuliani repeated a pledge to closely track immigrants with tamperproof identity cards, bolster fencing and law enforcement at the border and deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Giuliani planned to highlight his support for a physical and technological fence with new radio ads beginning Wednesday in New Hampshire and Iowa. His technological fence would be a system of motion detectors, night vision monitors and video cameras.

Romney, inspecting border fencing and checkpoints Monday in San Diego, reiterated his plan to hire more Border Patrol agents, sanction employers who hire illegal immigrants and cut federal dollars for sanctuary cities.

Romney blames "don't tell" policies, and Giuliani's support for them, for luring millions of illegal immigrants to the United States.

"New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country," Romney said last week in Bettendorf, Iowa.

Giuliani's defense is that he cracked down on all crimes, including illegal immigration. "I don't think there was anybody in America who did a better job of making their city safe in the 1990s than I did," Giuliani said while campaigning in Carson, Iowa, on Wednesday. "I did that and I can do that for immigration."

And his campaign accused Romney of hypocrisy, pointing out that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney did not try to punish sanctuary cities _ Cambridge, Orleans and Somerville _ in his own state.

"He had three sanctuary cities in his own state," longtime Giuliani aide Randy Mastro said. "The New York City program was very different. We had a system that protected public safety by encouraging aliens to come forward to the authorities to report crimes, and then required authorities to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of aliens who committed crimes."

Romney says he tried to curtail the problem by deputizing state police to enforce federal immigration laws.

"It was exactly in response to the fact that immigration laws were not being enforced," spokesman Kevin Madden said. "It was also in conjunction with his belief that enforcement has to be a joint state and federal effort."

Bloomberg, who may run for president himself, waded into the dispute this week. Asked Monday about the idea of New York as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, he said, "Let 'em come."

"I can't think of any laboratory that shows better why you need a stream of immigrants than New York City," he added. "I don't know what to tell anybody. If they don't believe that immigrants add a heck of a lot more than they cost, they just aren't looking at the numbers."

___

Associated Press writers Sara Kugler in New York, Mike Wilson in Carson, Iowa, and Philip Elliott in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.