It took Rudy Giuliani less than a New York minute to connect last week’s big illegal immigration raid on a fruit-packing plant to Sept. 11.

“People can get in, and we don’t know who they are, in huge numbers,” said the Republican presidential candidate.

“Once Sept. 11 happened, it became an issue of national security.”

Even among presidential candidates trained to stay on message like bird dogs on a scent, Giuliani is tenaciously tied to terror. As mayor of New York during Sept. 11, he’s not only faithful to his message, he is his message; it’s never farther from him than the American flag pin on his lapel.

During a brief public appearance in Portland, Ore., site of the June 12 immigration raid, Giuliani trotted it out quickly while shaking hands in a downtown lunch spot before a private fundraising lunch and a flight up to Seattle.

Most people watching coverage of the roundup of fruit packers at Fresh Del Monte Produce in North Portland seem to have viewed it – from either side – as an economic issue. But Giuliani immediately steered questions about the raid to the dangers of internal attack.

He sees the issue of illegal immigration all around the country, he explained, and, “Wherever I go, people talk about terrorism and the risk of terrorism.”

From this perspective on immigration, the entire debate now going on in Washington is beside the point; it’s all a subset of terror.

“We have to know who’s in this country, and in order to do that, you have to seal the borders,” Giuliani explains. “Until we secure the borders, it’s impossible to rationalize the rest of immigration policy.”

In fact, the current legislation in Washington, a process jump-started on Friday by President Bush’s pledge to put more money into upfront border control, is “fatally flawed. It is a compromise for the sake of compromise that will make things worse.”

The process, Giuliani explains with the fervor of a candidate running from outside the Beltway, is a measure of why people have lost faith in Washington.

This is all a politically appealing position, especially among Republican voters, powerfully opposed to the president’s position and to anything that can be called “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. He even has a point; it would be useful, from a national security point of view, to control the borders and know who’s here.

But considering how many jobs, in fields and factories and on construction sites, are filled by illegal immigrants, the idea that the rest of the immigration debate can be frozen until the border is sealed is more an applause line than an economic policy.

Which doesn’t mean it won’t work politically.

It’s not a bad outlook for someone running for president almost entirely on the grounds of toughness, and the idea that all the issues that might come up actually come down to a single one.

In fact, only one other issue even came up as Giuliani worked his way through the small crowd in a Portland deli, a question about Iraq.

“It’s not about Iraq,” explained Giuliani. “It’s about the ability and strength of the terrorists to strike us.”

In the Giuliani campaign, just about everything is.