Rudy's immigration plan

Rudy Giuliani:

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Ending illegal immigration begins with securing the border. We need to build both a physical and a high-tech fence to monitor and control border crossings. We need a fully staffed 20,000-agent Border Patrol with continued logistical support from the National Guard. And to increase their effectiveness, we will institute BorderStat - a data-driven system of intelligence gathering that will monitor the border and give agents real-time information to put resources in the right place at the right time.

We also need a swipeable, tamper-proof biometric ID for all foreign workers and foreign students in our nation. The Secure, Authorized, Foreign Entry Card, SAFE card, will enable us to create a national database of all non-citizens in our nation. The SAFE card will also help us track when people enter and exit our nation. More than 40 percent of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in our country overstayed their visas.

We must have a zero-tolerance policy for non-citizen criminals. When I became mayor, we had 400,000 illegal immigrants in New York City. Immigration officials said they could deport only a few thousand a year. And when I wanted to fast-track the deportation of drug dealers and other criminals in city jails, I was told they would have to wait behind a busboy or a college professor who'd over-stayed their visas. It made no sense.

Currently, we deport only about 14 percent of the roughly 300,000 deportable non-citizen criminals in our prisons. That will change: If you come to our country and commit a crime, you will be prosecuted. You will serve your sentence. And then you will be met at the prison gate with a one-way ticket out of our country.

Finally, we need to reconnect immigration with Americanization. Immigrants to our country must learn to read, write and speak English and learn the basics of civics and U.S. history. We need a common currency of communication for the American experiment to work.

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This is a plan that makes sense and is much more important than his spat with Romney over sanctuary cities. The only thing I would add to this program is a commitment to improve the regulatory side of immigration to make legal immigration more efficient. Stressing legal immigration also demonstrates that the GOP is not anti immigrant or associated witht eh "know Nothings" of the 1800s. We just want the immigration process to be conducted under the rule of law and that requires policies that do not reward bad conduct.