{"id":12813,"date":"2007-09-08T11:15:51","date_gmt":"2007-09-08T15:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12813.html"},"modified":"2007-09-08T11:15:51","modified_gmt":"2007-09-08T15:15:51","slug":"its-not-a-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/its-not-a-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s not a crime’"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think it’s safe to assume the right will be less than pleased with Rudy Giuliani’s interview<\/a> with Glenn Beck yesterday:<\/p>\n

GLENN: [I]sn’t illegal immigration a crime in and of itself?<\/p>\n

GIULIANI: No.<\/p>\n

GLENN: Aren’t you saying —<\/p>\n

GIULIANI: Glenn —<\/p>\n

GLENN: You’re protecting criminals by saying that being treated as a criminal is unfair.<\/p>\n

GIULIANI: Glenn, it’s not a crime. I know that’s very hard for people to understand, but it’s not a federal crime.<\/p>\n

GLENN: It’s a misdemeanor but if you’ve been nailed, it is a crime. If you’ve been nailed, ship back and come back, it is a crime.<\/p>\n

GIULIANI: Glenn, being an illegal immigrant, the 400,000 were not prosecuted for crimes by the federal government, nor could they be…. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it’s not a criminal proceeding. It’s a civil proceeding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beck followed up by asking if illegal immigration should<\/i> be a crime, prompting Giuliani to argue, “No, it shouldn’t be because the government wouldn’t be able to prosecute it.”<\/p>\n

Now, Giuliani isn’t wrong. Illegal immigrants aren’t imprisoned for being in the country; they’re deported. There’s simply no practical way to incarcerate every single person who enters the U.S. illegally.<\/p>\n

But as far as the Republican base is concerned, the former NYC mayor, whose record on immigration was far too liberal for GOP tastes anyway, has given far-right activists just another reason to question<\/a> his conservative bona fides.
\n
\nHere’s<\/a> a sample of how conservatives responded to the interview:<\/p>\n

Giuliani is undoubtedly making some obscure legal point here, but for the average citizen there is one overarching trough about our immigration laws: Crossing the border into this country without going through the proper customs channels is against them. Why Giuliani would argue against that, especially given that most of his base is guaranteed to disagree with him, is beyond me. What a stupid, stupid thing to say. But the really odd thing is that Giuliani isn\u2019t just being a pedant, he\u2019s actually saying that illegal immigration shouldn\u2019t<\/em> be a crime. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And another<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So he says that crossing the border illegally<\/em> isn\u2019t illegal. Not a crime. And even if it were, why there\u2019s too many of them to prosecute so why should we bother? … This coming from Rudy, who has done nothing but tout his \u201ctough on crime\u201d record while mayor of NYC. Unbelievable. And people wonder why I say he\u2019s not a conservative\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And one more<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Okay, forget Rudy as even a Veep possibility…. Giuliani\u2019s immigration views make him a net liability in a way almost nothing else could.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This one might linger a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think it’s safe to assume the right will be less than pleased with Rudy Giuliani’s interview with Glenn Beck yesterday: GLENN: [I]sn’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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}