Rudy Giuliani On Immigration, Mortgage Bailout

Glenn Beck interviewed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani last week, and it revealed a couple interesting nuggets on Giuliani's policy stances. It's a short interview, so read the whole thing. The short version is that Rudy is against the mortgage bailout for essentially the same reasons I've blogged about before. That's great.

Unfortunately, Giuliani doesn't appear to believe illegal immigration is...well...illegal. Here's the money quote:

GLENN: Right. But isn't illegal immigration a crime in and of itself?
GIULIANI: No.
GLENN: Aren't you saying --
GIULIANI: Glenn --
GLENN: You're protecting criminals by saying that being treated as a criminal is unfair.
GIULIANI: Glenn, it's not a crime. I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime.

He tries to put it into his perspective, so there's a little more to it than this excerpt (go read the transcript to get that perspective), but I'm not convinced his argument holds much water. Quite plainly, the first illegal entry into America is a misdemeanor, and warrants deportation. The second illegal entry (and every one after that) is, in fact, a felony. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that Giuliani seems to be the front-runner on prosecuting the War on Terror, and illegal entry into the U.S. is a critical weakness in that war. I'm surprised he doesn't get that.

This is quite the red flag, in my opinion. Just keep it in mind as the primary election draws closer.

There's my two cents.