More on Giuliani’s Immigration Shift

From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro:

In his continuing shift right, Giuliani is up today with a 60-second, hard-line immigration radio ad in Iowa and New Hampshire called “Fence.” In the ad, he says illegal immigration “frustrates” him and he drew on his experience as mayor of New York — again. He criticizes the U.S. Immigration Service, who he says he tried to work with as mayor of New York.

“It makes no sense,” Giuliani says of the immigration service’s deportation priorities. “After they have been in jail for selling drugs in the United States — we now have to keep them in the United States. They [the immigration service] couldn’t do it [deport them], because they had other people lined up to throw out. They had like a professor who over-stayed his visa. I had a drug dealer who had maybe killed people.”

Last week, Romney accused Giuliani of having run a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants as mayor of New York. This week, the New York newspapers challenged Giuliani’s hard-line immigration credibility. Today, the New York Post wrote, “Critics said Giuliani’s get-tough plan contrasts with his actions as mayor, when he actually filed a lawsuit to protect the identity of illegal aliens receiving city services.” Yesterday, the New York Daily News said as mayor Giuliani was “considered one of the most immigrant-friendly government executives in the nation — in both word and deed.”

The Daily News pulled a quote from Giuliani who said in 1994, “’Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. 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.” Click here for the full transcript.

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