1 In 3 Would Deny Illegal Aliens Services

A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll finds one-third of Americans want to deny services, including public schooling and emergency room healthcare, to illegal aliens. A majority -- 60% -- favors a path to citizenship for illegals who have not committed crimes.

The poll also found that illegal immigration is less a concern than the Iraq war, the economy, protecting the country from terrorist attacks and health care.

The poll also makes clear that respondents make a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants:

Asked if illegal immigrants had made a positive or negative contribution to their community, 36% said negative, whereas 21% said positive and 29% said the effect was not discernible.

When the same question was asked about legal immigrants, 12% said their contribution was negative, compared with 46% who said positive and 31% who saw no discernible effect.

Only 22% said that illegal aliens should be able to get limited driver's licenses. That finding explains why many leading Democrats opposed licenses for illegals when it was proposed by New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer. It also helps explain why Hillary's failure to give a straight answer about Spitzer's unpopular plan has cost her the lead in Iowa.

Tancredo Blames Lax Border For Gang Violence

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo is airing another television ad with ominous warnings about illegal immigration, this one saying that vicious Central American gangs in the U.S. are killing mothers, raping children and selling drugs:



The ad, which is running in Iowa reminds us of Tancredo's "Tough on Terror" ad, which linked lax border security to future terrorist attacks.

Tancredo defended his ad campaign:

"What we state [in the ads] is something that is completely factual," he said. "Certainly, I think we should all be fearful of the massive problems caused by illegal immigration."

No wonder Tancredo's ads are labeled fear mongering.

Solving Illegal Immigration

While Romney and Giuliani go at it over the "sanctuary state of mind: "

As for Mr. Romney, he spared no political stripe in denouncing candidates on the subject:

"We’re not going to give people who are here illegally drivers licenses, nor are we going to give them tuition breaks in our institutions of higher learning,” Romney said. “This ‘sanctuary state of mind’ which exists from Hillary Clinton to Mayor Giuliani to Governor Huckabee is simply an attitude we’re going to have to change."

Updated 4 p.m. Maria Comella, spokeswoman for the Giuliani campaign, shot back this afternoon at Mr. Romney’s criticisms:

"Once again Presidential Trail Mitt Romney completely ignores the record of Governor Mitt Romney. Under Governor Mitt Romney the number of illegal immigrants skyrocketed, while he recommended millions of dollars in state aid to numerous sanctuary cities and to companies employing illegal immigrants, not to mention the illegals working on his own lawn."

Fred Thompson airs a new ad in which he talks about how to solve the illegal immigration problem - securing the border, enforcing the la, and w opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.




Thompson has proposed the government should take away federal dollars from cities and states that don't report illegal immigrants. Under his proposal, so-called "sanctuary cities" would lose discretionary federal grants, as would colleges and universities that allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition.

Makes sense to me.