Saturday, September 08, 2007

Giuliani: Illegal Immigration is Not a Crime

Rudy Giuliani had some interesting remarks about illegal immigration yesterday on Glen Beck's show on CNN Headline News.

It's not a crime. I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime. I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York. 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.
Rudy later added...
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. My solution is close the border to illegal immigration.
Rudy has some good points, but these comments sure will make a lot of Republicans angry. It would be interesting to lock Rudy and Tom Tancredo in the same room and see who will come out alive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rudy is wrong actually....

Removal proceedings (a/k/a deportation) is neither a criminal nor civil proceeding...it's an administrative law hearing.

Also, there are hundreds if not thousands of illegal immigrants who are criminally prosecuted every year by the U.S. Attorney's Offices around the country for reentry after a prior deportation. I should know...I prosecuted some of them.