Giuliani: Illegal Immigration Not a Crime, Should Not Be

Well, I was on shaky ground with former-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the GOP presidential candidate before but now, after this interview conducted on Glenn Beck’s radio program, it is definitely looking less likely I’ll throw my support behind him. It’s not ‘John McCain’ bad, but close.

Here’s an excerpt:

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.

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

........

GLENN: Should it be?

GIULIANI: Should it be? No, it shouldn't be because the government wouldn't be able to prosecute it. We couldn't prosecute 12 million people. We have only 2 million people in jail right now for all the crimes that are committed in the country, 2.5 million. If you were to make it a crime, you would have to take the resources of the criminal justice system and increase it by about 6. In other words, you'd have to take all the 800,000 police, and who knows how many police we would have to have.