Rudy Giuliani, repeat after me: amnesty is relieving a class of lawbreakers [amnesty is relieving a class of lawbreakers] of the penalty required by law [of the penalty required by law] at the time they broke the law [at the time they broke the law].

For foreign nationals now illegally in the country, the minimum penalty required for their violations of US immigration law is, reasonably enough, repatriation. They must go home. They must go home for a period of at least three to ten years. Then, and only then, will they truly be going to the back of the line and not receiving an amnesty.

Quizzed about his position on illegal immigration on Fox News, Rudy Giuliani said millions of illegal aliens who have not committed a crime in the United States would not have to leave the country before becoming citizens.

“They would have to get on the back of the line,” he said. “They couldn’t get ahead of anyone else. They would have to pay fines. And then at the end of the road, anyone on any of these lists would have to be able to read English, write English, speak English. There would be substantial things that had to be done,” Giuliani said. He dismissed the label “amnesty.” “Amnesty is being free and clear of all penalties of any kind,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani is a lawyer, so he must know how disingenuous his statement is.

Rudy would allow illegal aliens to stay in the United States. That’s an amnesty, period. Furthermore, he would allow them to become citizens. So, not only would Giuliani relieve illegal aliens from the penalty for breaking the law, he’d reward them with the prize that they broke the law to get in the first place. That’s like pardoning all bank robbers, setting them free, and then giving the stolen money back to them to boot.

Rudy’s claim that his amnesty isn’t really an amnesty because “amnesty is being free and clear of all penalties of any kind” is taken directly from talking points issued by those wonderful people at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

No legal dictionary in the world includes the qualifier “free and clear of all penalties of any kind” in the definition of amnesty. In fact, amnesties very often include conditions. A government may grant an amnesty to rebels, for example, with the condition the rebels surrender their weapons. Nevertheless, Rudy claims that because the amnesty he supports would include conditions—requiring amnestied illegal aliens to pay some sort of fee, making them promise to study English or do 20 push-ups, or something—it isn’t an amnesty.

Rudy is wrong. As an attorney, he must know he’s wrong. He’s shown us that, on immigration, a President Giuliani would be as big a disaster as a President McCain or any of the Democrats. He’d be as big a disaster, in fact, as the biggest disaster of them all, President George W. Bush.

Tags:   amnesty · Giuliani · immigrationNo Comments