Count me as unimpressed by Rudy’s immigration offensive. Look at his specifics:

  • More border fencing and agents. This is, of course, already law.
  • “Deporting any illegal alien who commits a felony”: How long did it take them to think that up?
  • ID card for foreign workers and students: So what? They already have machine-readable visas, issued by our State Department, pasted to the inside of their passports.
  • Check-out system for foreign visitors: Congress required this in 1996, and the administration last week announced baby steps in that direction.
  • “Requiring immigrants to truly read, write and speak English”: Again, this is already law.

These are all perfectly admirable goals, of course, but they’re routine — if you’re against deporting illegal-alien felons, for instance, you shouldn’t even be in politics, let alone a Republican primary. More important to understanding what he’d do as president is this: “He says he would allow a pathway to citizenship only for illegal immigrants who identify themselves as illegal, who learn English and who go to the back of the line to apply.”

In other words, he supports amnesty, on essentially the same terms as President Bush and John McCain.

Likewise, this: “It is important to accomplish these goals in order to preserve and expand legal immigration.”

A what did he do as mayor? This is from an October 12, 1996, wire story:

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani filed suit Friday to overturn new laws he said would force the city to surrender the names of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to the federal government.
“The Immigration and Naturalization Service will do nothing with those names but terrorize people,” Giuliani said. He said the lawsuit was the first constitutional challenge to the welfare-reform law President Clinton signed Aug. 22. It seeks to defend a New York City policy that bars its employees from telling immigration officials about undocumented entrants who come to their attention.

The lawsuit sought to defend New York City Executive Order 124 against federal efforts to control immigration. Giuliani explained here that the lawsuit was based on his belief that the 1996 law in question discriminated against illegal aliens (“it discriminates unfairly and invidiously based their immigration status”) and violated the Tenth Amendment (funny how liberals rediscover federalism when it suits them).

It’s one thing to change your mind — I have no idea whether Romney is sincere in his newfound pro-life views, but he at least is acknowledging a change in views. Giuliani is insisting that his views haven’t changed, which can only mean that he supports amnesty and increased immigration, and wants to make sure that we don’t discriminate against illegal aliens. Do we really need another Republican candidate with those views?