Giuliani focuses on immigration in Maine speech Terror also topic in address to troopers

SOUTH PORTLAND – Rudy Giuliani vowed Monday to crack down on illegal immigration and terrorist activities if elected president by using a model that was developed to cut crime when he was mayor of New York City. He also decried Columbia University for giving a forum to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Giuliani, one of the front-runners to be the Republican presidential nominee, told a group of about 150 law enforcement officials that crime was cut by 56 percent when he was mayor using a computer-assisted crime-fighting system known as COMSTAT.

Similar programs – he called them “BorderStat” and “TerrorStat” – could be developed on the national level to cut down on illegal immigration and reduce the threat of terrorism, Giuliani said at the National Troopers Coalition fall convention at the Sheraton hotel.

Giuliani said his experience fighting crime as New York’s mayor and with the federal Justice Department would help him with public safety and security issues.

“I don’t think there’s been a president since Teddy Roosevelt that’s had as much experience with policing as I’ve had,” Giuliani said.

He didn’t mention Ahmadinejad during his address. But he attacked the decision to let him address Columbia University in interviews with members of the media.

Speaking in New York, Ah-madinejad defended Holocaust deniers and raised questions about who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, among other things.

“I think it’s highly inappropriate that Columbia University asked him to speak. … His government of Iran is considered to be the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani’s speech marked one of the first presidential campaign visits in Maine.

While neighboring New Hampshire has been visited repeatedly by candidates, Maine has had little campaigning. New Hampshire has the nation’s first presidential primary, while Maine doesn’t have a primary. The parties will hold presidential caucuses in February in Maine.

Giuliani is among the top presidential Republican contenders along with Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and John McCain. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, one of the front-runners in the Democratic race, was scheduled to attend a rally and fundraiser in Portland on Tuesday.

Giuliani delivered a law-and-order script on Monday, emphasizing his years as the mayor of New York City and his work after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His experience on those fronts, he said, gives him the know-how to deal with border security and terrorism.

To stem the tide of illegal immigrants, Giuliani said border patrol officials should use technology – such as nighttime photography and motion detectors along border fences – and statistical analysis of where illegal entry takes place.

To keep better track of immigrants who enter the nation legally, the government should issue tamperproof ID cards, he said.

“If you had all this data and information and used this equipment, we could virtually eliminate illegal immigration,” he said.

On the terrorism front, Giuliani said he would develop a “TerrorStat” program to better utilize existing law enforcement agencies and intelligence information. Law enforcement officials from all levels – local, state and federal – should communicate better and tap into each other’s resources to identify terrorist threats before they turn into attacks, he said.

Police are not only first responders, they’re “first preventers,” too, he said.

“We don’t know if the next first preventer is going to be a [New Jersey] police officer or a Maine trooper or New York or California, who knows?” Giuliani said.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee in Washington said Giuliani “has shown once again his knack for stretching the truth about his experience on fighting terrorism.”

“For all his tough talk, Giuliani’s record shows he failed to prepare New York after the first attack on the World Trade Center [in 1993] and never even read up on al-Qaida until after 9-11,” said Dag Vega.