Monday, December 10, 2007

Jobs Magnet   [Mark Krikorian]

A comment by Giuliani from the Univision debate that struck me:

The first thing that has to be done is we have to end illegal immigration. If we don't end illegal immigration, we're really going to risk legal immigration. We should end illegal immigration at the border, because it can't be really dealt with internally.

This jibes with what I've heard — people inside Giuliani's campaign are urging him to talk up electronic verification of work eligibility (the feds' E-Verify system) and he refuses. You might ask how border measures alone can address the one-third of illegal immigrants who come legally but then never leave, but that's assuming he's serious about immigration enforcement. On the other hand, his comment makes perfect sense if his support for immigration enforcement is based solely on his desire for an illegal-alien amnesty: the people want enforcement first, so he'll pledge border enforcement, but not interior enforcement, since the latter might actually cause some illegal aliens to give up and go home (and in fact is already doing that), and that's intolerable to him.

12/10 04:32 PMShare