United States:The two leading US Republican presidential candidates have turned the party's primary campaign into a nasty, week-long debate about illegal immigration, accusing each other of supporting efforts to give undocumented residents sanctuary from federal immigration laws.
At campaign stops, in radio ads and with increasingly hostile statements by supporters, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani are talking about little else as they position themselves on an issue critical to conservatives in their party.
"They are trying to rattle their sabres louder than the other and thump on their chests," said Angela Kelley, the deputy director of the pro-immigrant National Immigration Forum. "Both of these guys are trying to remake themselves."
Mr Romney started the fight and his criticism reflects his campaign's emerging strategy after the former governor's victory in the Iowa straw poll last Saturday. Mr Romney's advisers would like to narrow the Republican race as much as possible to a two-person contest with Mr Giuliani and are seeking to brand Mr Romney as the true conservative in the race, in contrast to Mr Giuliani.
They also hope to seize the initiative with conservatives before former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who is expected to enter the race next month, can establish his own bona fides with the party's base.
At the heart of the Romney-Giuliani argument is the role of cities in the immigration crisis.
Mr Romney has said that New York City, under Mr Giuliani's leadership, became a magnet for illegal immigrants due to a refusal to strictly enforce federal deportation laws.
Mr Giuliani in return accuses Mr Romney of looking the other way as cities and towns in Massachusetts declared themselves "sanctuaries" for lawbreakers.
Both camps continued to escalate the issue on Thursday. New York Congressman and Sinn Féin supporter Peter King, writing on behalf of Mr Giuliani, attacked Mr Romney in an opinion piece in the Washington Times. Mr King accused Mr Romney of failing to act as governor against sanctuary cities in his state.
"Mr Romney did not cut their funding. He recommended millions of dollars in state funding for them, and made no attempt to force these cities to change their policies," Mr King wrote. "When the immigration issue came before him, he simply ignored it."
Mr Giuliani's former deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, went further in an interview: "We have a word here in New York for what Mitt Romney is doing. It's called chutzpah."
Mr Romney's aides responded with an online column by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, who called the immigration policies in New York City "troubling" and blamed them for the growth of the nation's population of illegal immigrants.
"Sanctuary policies create virtual amnesty zones for illegal immigrants. While amnesty was just defeated in the Congress, places like New York City offer a promise of amnesty to those who ignore our immigration laws," Mr Smith wrote.
Mr Romney has focused on a New York executive order which Mr Giuliani inherited - and later supported - that protects illegal immigrants from deportation.
Mr Giuliani responds that his actions in New York - which allowed children of illegal immigrants to go to school, receive medical care and report crimes without facing deportation - reduced crime and improved public health.
In a radio ad running in South Carolina, Mr Giuliani says that he was attempting to focus efforts on the true problem: criminals.
"As the mayor of New York, I wanted to see if I could get the immigration service to help me. Let's see if you could get rid of the drug dealers who are coming out of jail," he says.
Mr Romney opened his attacks on Monday during a campaign stop at the US-Mexico border in San Ysidro, California, saying that as president, he would cut off federal funds to cities which offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants.
As governor, Mr Romney vetoed a Bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition at Massachusetts colleges.
- (LA Times - Washington Post service)