( The Manhattan Institute's Tamar Jacoby seconds, in the Washington Post, an argument Rudy Giuliani has been making to audiences. She writes: "The point is obvious enough: We need to take the busboys out of the equation (by means of a temporary worker program) so that Border Patrol can focus on the smugglers and terrorists who pose a genuine threat. And, just as urgent, we need to find a way to bring the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country onto the right side of the law, creating incentives for them to come forward, then registering, screening and, as long as they stay here, keeping track of them.") Post on April 5, 2006: Opponents of President Bush's immigration position like to claim the high ground on national security. They rightly claim that we must secure our border, especially in a post 9/11 world. But at the same time many also contend that a guest-worker program would weaken U.S. security. Well, Mayor Giuliani argues that 9/11 is a reason why we need such a program. From today's Chicago Sun Times:
Giuliani wants to 'regularize' immigrants to improve safety: Turning 11 million illegal immigrants into criminals is not the way to secure the nation's borders or prevent another terrorist attack, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday. The way to do that is to "regularize," document, photograph and fingerprint immigrants to drive what Giuliani called "this vast underground" above ground.... "The president is right to support a guest-workers program," Giuliani said. "If we recognize it, document it, photograph it and know who and what it is, then we can concentrate our attention on the people who aren't coming in to be guest workers but are coming in to bomb us, or coming in to sell heroin or cocaine or to launder money. "By having this vast underground, we are much more insecure," said Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney. "And by trying to do the impossible, we're much more insecure. If you have 11 million people in this country who are illegal or undocumented, and you have similar numbers coming in through this underground, that is a much, much more dangerous situation for terrorists to exploit, drug dealers to exploit and other criminals to exploit." ...On Tuesday, Giuliani acknowledged that the immigration issue has divided his Republican Party and the nation. But that's partly because it's being conducted "as a theoretical debate," when immigration is "a fact" of life, he said. "People want to come to the United States. That is a good thing. We want people to want to come to the United States. That means we're still the shining city on the hill. We're still the place [where] people see greater opportunity, greater freedom, a better way to create a better life for themselves and their families," he said.