Mitt Romney for President My Man Mitt: Rudy on Immigration and Welfare Reform

There has been some confusion as to where Rudy stands on Immigration. Over at Ankle Biting Pundits they looked into this.

They found this speech on the Welfare Reform law given September 11th 1996.

There are aspects to the Welfare Reform Bill that, as just a matter of policy, I disagree with and I think could pose very serious problems, and although I do think the bill does some good, in the end I believe it does more harm than good.

Which aspects did he disagree with so much that he decided to go to court over it? In the welfare bill it required Cities to turn over the names of illegal immigrants over to the INS. From the speech:

New York City's Executive Order 124, signed by Mayor Koch in 1988 protected
people in that endeavor by instructing employees of New York City that they
are not to turn in those names into the Immigration and Naturalization
Service....

What do you do about it, do you revoke Executive Order 124? It is my conclusion and Corporation Counsel's conclusion that this raises such serious constitutional questions that we will challenge it in court.

Giuliani defends his decision by saying that:

The tenth amendment reads: "The power not delegated to the United States by
the Constitution not prohibited by it to the States is reserved to the States respectively or to the people." So what the Constitution says is unless a power is given to the national government, to the federal government, and unless you define those powers in the enumerated powers of the federal government, those powers are retained for the states for their local subdivisions and for the people.

He says that Police power is a local authority and therefore the bill is unconstitutional by dictating what a local police force must do when in violation of local laws..

I would counter that while Police power is a local authority the integrity of our borders and the security that integrity provides is a federal one. It being a federal power therefore means that local authority cannot supersede it.This is another area with stark differences between Governor Romney and his two leading opponents.

While McCain and Giuliani both favor policies to coddle and give aid to those whose first action in this country is to violate this country's laws Governor Romney has advocated tough enforcement of our immigration laws.

From his Website:

We need to make America more attractive for legal immigrants -- for citizens -- and less attractive for illegal immigrants. I want to see more immigration inour country, but more legal immigration and less illegal immigration."

Labels: Giuliani, Immigration, Romney