"His contribution to the international game has been immense and quite rightly he will be remembered as one of the true legends of the sport, " Richardson said of Ponting, who ranks behind only Don Bradman in Australia's list of batting greats and is the only player to have won the ICC's cricketer of the year award twice in a row.

CNN: Ponting 'one of cricket's true legends'

"On that one prior time, he did a runaway, and we located him, so we don't have a longstanding history file on him, " Richardson said.

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"That suggests that people who don't tend to go skiing were getting out there, " Richardson said.

WSJ: Skier visits up 20 percent at Northeast ski areas

"I think the administration's response does make sense in the sense that you don't want to continue this huge rhetoric and at the same time provoke some kind of incident, " Richardson said.

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From my perspective, I agree with Bill Richardson that there is a public safety concern here and that we're better off, because I don't want a bunch of hit-and-run drivers, because they're worried about being deported and so they don't report an accident.

CNN: Transcript of Thursday's Democratic presidential debate