Rudy Giuliani: Illegal Immigration Isn’t A Crime
I guess he doesn’t really want to be president after all.
WASHINGTON – Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said illegal immigration is not a crime, prompting rival Mitt Romney to accuse him of not taking the problem seriously.
The two have clashed for weeks over illegal immigration, an issue that inflames GOP conservatives who influence primary elections. The irony is that both candidates have in the past taken more liberal stands on the issue.
“It’s not a crime,” Giuliani said Friday. “I know that’s very hard for people to understand, but it’s not a federal crime.”
Giuliani’s comments came in an interview with CNN Headline News and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck.
“I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York,” he said. “So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it’s not a criminal proceeding. It’s a civil proceeding.”
Giuliani is undoubtedly making some obscure legal point here, but for the average citizen there is one overarching trough about our immigration laws: Crossing the border into this country without going through the proper customs channels is against them. Why Giuliani would argue against that, especially given that most of his base is guaranteed to disagree with him, is beyond me. What a stupid, stupid thing to say.
But the really odd thing is that Giuliani isn’t just being a pedant, he’s actually saying that illegal immigration shouldn’t be a crime.
Illegal immigration shouldn’t be a crime, either, Giuliani said: “No, it shouldn’t be because the government wouldn’t be able to prosecute it. We couldn’t prosecute 12 million people. We have only 2 million people in jail right now for all the crimes that are committed in the country, 2.5 million.”
Of course, we don’t put illegal immigrants in jail in this country. We deport them. And we absolutely can prosecute 12 million people. The only way Giuliani’s absurd point might be relevant is if we tried to prosecute all 12 million at once. As it is, we should prosecute them (or otherwise provide for due process in the legal system) as they’re taken into custody. And then deport them shortly after that.
Giuliani is using a variation of the “we can’t deport 12 million people” argument, and they’re both bogus because as I just explained they’re predicated on the idea that we’d try to deal with all 12 million illegals in this country at once. We wouldn’t. We’d deal with them over the course of years and years as they’re taken into custody.
Regardless, there is no way I’m voting for Rudy Giuliani in this election. I had my doubts about him before, but this seals the deal. If he becomes President I may support his policies on a case-by-case basis (which I’d do with any President anyway), but he clearly doesn’t take the immigration issue seriously.
