Why should we believe that you would be any tougher on illegal immigration than Mayor Giuliani

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Gov. Romney: We Must Enforce Our Immigration Laws

Good evening, gentlemen. Let’s talk about illegal immigration. Governor Romney, in recent weeks, you have gone after Mayor Giuliani for running what you say was a sanctuary city for illegals. But as governor of Massachusetts, you did nothing to stop Cambridge, Somerville or Orleans, all of which proclaim themselves to be sanctuaries. In fact, you didn’t even catch the illegals who were mowing your front lawn. (Laughter.)

So the question is -- so the question is, why should we believe that you would be any tougher on illegal immigration than Mayor Giuliani?

MR. ROMNEY: Well, Chris, first of all, with regards to front lawns, people don’t go to their contractors and inspect their -- their ID cards of their employees.

Secondly with regards to sanctuary cities, the governors aren’t responsible for mayors who are not following the law. And actually in my case, I -- as soon as I learned about it, a program in the department of -- of ICE, that we could have our state police authorized to enforce the law, I did just that, so that in sanctuary cities in our state and non-sanctuary cities, the law would be enforced.

But this is a place where Mayor Giuliani and I just simply disagree.

I think we should reduce federal funding to cities that call themselves sanctuary cities. I think saying, as he did, if you happen to be an undocumented alien, we want you in New York, we’ll protect you in New York -- I think that contributed to 3 million illegals in this country becoming 12 million illegals coming into this country.

And I also disagree on the issue of -- of what I’ll call amnesty. And that is, I just don’t think that you say to people who’ve come here illegally that if you work here we’re going to sign you up. That’s the wrong answer. Amnesty is not the right answer for this -- this problem. (Cheers, applause.)