Dumb Xenophobes R Us
by digby
Chris Matthews has tried to wrap his inchoate mind around this question a few times, but for the most part nobody seems to get what a ridiculous proposition Rudy Giuliani is peddling with his proposal to "identify every non-citizen in our nation." I assume from what he said in the debates that he means to do this by forcing all the non-citizens to carry ID cards:
GIULIANI: The problem with this immigration plan is it has no real unifying purpose. It's a typical Washington mess. It's everybody compromises -- four or five compromises.
And the compromises leave you with the following conclusion: The litmus test you should have for legislation is, is it going to make things better? And when you look at these compromises, it is quite possible it will make things worse. The organizing purpose should be that our immigration laws should allow us to identify everyone who is in this country that comes here from a foreign country.
They should have a tamper-proof I.D. card. It should be in a database that allows you to figure out who they are, why they're here, make sure they're not illegal immigrants coming here for a bad purpose, and then to be able to throw out the ones who are not in that database.
We can do that. Credit card companies...
BLITZER: Thank you.
GIULIANI: ... take care of data that is greater than that.
Does anyone have any idea what in the hell he's talking about? How is this supposed to work? Run anyone who Rudy (or someone else) thinks looks like they might be foreign through the database? Demand that people with foreign accents be prepared to show their ID's and if they don't have them --- force them to prove they aren't illegal immigrants? Implant tourists and foreign businessmen with a homing device when they come through the border? I don't get it.
The fact is that this scheme only makes sense if everybody carries a tamper proof national ID, which could be demanded by law enforcement and employers for any reason they choose. Some people think this is a good idea, others don't. I think it's completely unnecessary. But let's not pretend that Rudy's nonsensical idea could possibly work any other way.
Xenophobia is the new black (if you know what I mean) in this campaign so I'm not entirely surprised. But after George W. Bush the press really should hold these candidates to a higher standard than Junior-style gibberish. I'm not holding my breath.
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