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Fred Thompson Raps 'Open Border' Immigration
Fred Thompson, a potential Republican presidential candidate, suggested that the 1986 immigration law signed by President Reagan is to blame for the country's illegal immigrants and he bemoaned a nation beset by "suicidal maniacs." "Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women and children around the world," the former Tennessee senator said. "We're sitting here now with essentially open borders." He made the comments Thursday night as he discussed the 1986 immigration reform bill and the Senate's current legislation to overhaul the immigration system during a speech to people attending the annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner in Stamford, Conn. Thompson, the actor on NBC's popular drama "Law & Order," is widely expected to enter the GOP presidential race this summer. His backers bill him as a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan who can beat the Democratic nominee in November 2008.
Story Continues Below That's the same Reagan who signed an immigration overhaul two decades ago that gave amnesty to an estimated 2.7 million illegal immigrants who had been in the United States at least four years. "Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship," Reagan said in a statement on Nov. 6, 1986, as the bill became law with his signature. Immigration has dominated the Republican presidential race this week, with candidates seeking to navigate the tricky politics of the Senate measure that many conservatives oppose. They make up a large part of the GOP base whose votes are critical in the Republican primary contests. Thompson, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani all oppose the measure to varying degrees, even though all three have made statements in the past in which they appeared to support a similar measure the Senate previously considered. Sen. John McCain of Arizona is a co-sponsor of the new measure that would meld tougher policies to secure the country's porous borders with a guest-worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for most of the 12 million immigrants in the country illegally. "We should scrap this bill and the whole debate until we can convince the American people that we have secured the borders or at least have made great headway," Thompson said last week. His remark about "suicidal maniacs" drew a chuckle from McCain, who said in a telephone interview: "I don't know what to make of it." "I travel around the country extensively and that's certainly not the impression I have," McCain said. "I have not detected a nation full of suicidal maniacs." Giuliani said he hoped Thompson was not referring to immigrants in general. "He was probably referring to the risk we now run that if we have borders that can be easily penetrated, well then, even though it's a small group, terrorists can come in that way, drug dealers, other criminals," Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, said in a telephone interview. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, said he was not calling immigrants "suicidal maniacs" but, rather was referring to terrorists who seek to enter the United States through borders that have lax security. © 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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