BLUFFTON, S.C. (AP) _ Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday he wouldn't change laws that allow children of illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens, noting citizenship is determined by the Constitution.
"That's a very delicate balance that's been arrived at and I wouldn't change that," Giuliani said in response to a question from a crowd at Sun City Hilton Head, a sprawling retirement community down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.
The former New York mayor also criticized his Democratic opponents, saying they argue too much over when and how they'd invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the White House.
"What he should be invited to is to read a statement of an American policy ... we will not allow you to become a nuclear power," he said.
Friday morning's event was Giuliani's first town hall-style appearance since a political Web site report this week that a New York City police security detail billed obscure agencies to protect his lover and watch over him during the affair leading up to their marriage.
Giuliani's campaign wouldn't make him available to reporters Friday and he ignored a reporter's question about it afterward.
None in the crowd asked him about the billing disclosures during the event although some grumbled about it beforehand.
"I don't think that's proper," said Paul Schaefer, 79, who is trying to decide between Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain. In a close call, the security detail flap could make up his mind, he said.
It's less of a concern for 69-year-old Edward Grzelak. The affair and the political side of Giuliani's life shouldn't be linked, said the retired driver from New Jersey said.
"Business is business. Personal life is another thing. One thing doesn't have a thing to do with the other," he said. Giuliani will get his vote largely because of his performance after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Grzelak said.
In an interview Thursday with the "CBS Evening News," Giuliani dismissed the report as a "dirty trick" played hours before Wednesday's GOP debate.
"It's a typical political hit job with only half the story told, not that second part told — that every single penny was reimbursed, that all of this was public," Giuliani said. "All of this was discoverable. It was not done in a way that nobody could see it."
On Thursday, Joe Lohta, who was deputy mayor and budget director under Giuliani, said the billing practice was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani's office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies. At the end of each fiscal year, the New York Police Department repaid the divisions.
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