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Rudy Opposes Immigration Bill

By Philip Klein on 5.22.07 @ 11:04AM

According to the ABC News account:

At an event Monday in New York City, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said he did not support the "present version" of congress' Immigration Bill.

The former New York Mayor said he would like for there to be a system or database that would allow the government to "know everybody who is in the United States, who comes here from a foreign country".

"If you make that your goal then everything follows from that or leads to that," he added. "There should be a tamper proof id card, biometric id card that everyone who comes here from a foreign country should have. In order to make sure you identify everyone, in order to be secure."

Giuliani did hold out hope that through debate in Congress, the proper changes could be made to the bill.

"Let's see what happens in the debates they have now, the Senate has to debate it, the House as to debate it," said Giuliani. "Let's see if they can put something like that in, it that ends up giving us more security. The present version of the bill however ... I don't think that accomplishes that."

This is the perfect way for Giuliani to handle the sitaution. Opposing this version of the bill on security grounds is a realistic way for him to come out against a piece of legislation that has drawn the ire of the conservative base, without reversing his prior stances on the need for comprehensive reform. This ensures that John McCain will get most of the heat on this issue, and Romney can continue to look silly exploiting this situation by calling amnesty what he not too long ago said was "quite different" from amnesty. This also makes it likely that McCain and Romney will continue to escalate their war of words and makes it easier for Rudy to remain above the fray.

topics:
John McCain, Immigration