Romney vs. Giuliani On Immigration
At a town hall meeting in Columbia, S.C., Rudy Giuliani displays part of his immigration platform: a federal identification card. The former New York mayor came under fire on immigration from one of his major rivals for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
(By Brett Flashnick -- Associated Press)
TOOLBOX   Resize
 Save/Share +
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
|
SANCTUARY AND SERVICES
Romney vs. Giuliani On Immigration
Somewhere, John McCain must be smiling.
After watching his own campaign suffer badly over his support for a comprehensive immigration overhaul, the senator from Arizona can watch from the sidelines as his two main rivals in the race turn their immigration fire on each other.
On the campaign trail last week, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney criticized former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's record on illegal immigration, charging that under his leadership, "New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country."
Yesterday, the Giuliani campaign launched a radio ad that takes the Romney attack head on by casting Giuliani's mayoralty in a distinctly different light. In the 60-second ad, titled "Fence," Giuliani recalls the difficulty the city had in getting federal authorities to deport illegal immigrants who had committed crimes in New York. "It frustrates me that if someone comes here illegally, in addition to everything else that's involved in that, if they commit a crime, we don't throw them out of the country," Giuliani says in the ad.
It's a clever tactic, because it focuses voters' attention on one aspect of Giuliani's immigration approach in New York that might appeal to foes of illegal immigration -- he did complain about the bureaucratic delays and dysfunction that kept illegal immigrants convicted of crimes from being deported.
Left unsaid, though, is that Giuliani made those complaints in the context of defending his administration's policy of not reporting illegal immigrants seeking city services, a policy that was instituted by then-Mayor Ed Koch in 1988 and repeatedly challenged by federal officials.
As Giuliani sells himself to GOP primary voters, he has to contend with a lengthy record on immigration that might not go over well in key early-voting states including Iowa and South Carolina. In his first year as mayor in 1994, he said of illegal immigrants: "If you come here, and you work hard, and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city."
It's this record that Romney is trying to draw attention to, saying that Giuliani's policies only encouraged more people to cross the border. Meanwhile, current New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) -- a possible presidential contender himself -- is adding his voice to the debate. Asked this week about New York's status an unofficial sanctuary for illegal immigrants, Bloomberg 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."
-- Alec MacGillis
