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Newt Gingrich on Immigration

Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House


Deport 55,000 illegal aliens with multiple arrest records

According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, our country has 55,322 criminal illegal aliens who have been arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about eight arrests per illegal alien. Twenty-six percent (about 15,000) have had eleven or more arrests. Imagine a government bureaucracy so incompetent it can't even remove people from the United States when they have been arrested eleven or more times.
Source: Real Change, by Newt Gingrich, p. 29 Dec 18, 2007

Elite immigration solution incompatible with American values

There is a clear path to an effective immigration solution that is better for America and better for immigration. The challenge is to get the elites to listen to the American people.

Unfortunately, the Washington elites have agreed on a definition of success that is infuriating to the average American. The elites on the left oppose border control, oppose English as the official government language, oppose expanding legal immigration, and want to find a way to allow everyone here illegally to stay, all while prohibiting illegal immigration in the future. The country is convinced that this so-called solution is incompatible with American values and will weaken America's future.

In trying to force their left-wing solution on a country that rejects it, the elite have resorted to describing their critics as racist, xenophobic, unrealistic, and much worse. Those attacks are merely a sign of the elites' desperation.

Source: Real Change, by Newt Gingrich, p.127 Dec 18, 2007

Lax border security lets in terrorists

The American people overwhelmingly want to see their borders controlled as a matter of national security. By more than 7 to 1 (86% to 12%), Americas believe terrorists are trying to enter the United States illegally.

Most Americans understand the irrationality of intense security at airports and lax security at the borders. This requires the terrorist to be dumb enough that he insists on flying into the United States when he could simply ride a truck or walk into the country unimpeded. The refusal to control the border has been one of the most infuriating aspects of modern government, and one of the most inexcusable.

The American people want reform that establishes English as the official language of government, reform that controls the borders, reform that doesn't reward illegality, reform that enforces penalties on employers.

Source: Real Change, by Newt Gingrich, p.132 Dec 18, 2007

Immigrants must learn key values of American history

We must establish patriotic education for our children and patriotic immigration for new Americans. To achieve this, we will renew our commitment to education about American citizenship based on American history and an understanding of the Founding Fathers and the core values of American civilization. We will insist that both our children and immigrants learn the key values and key facts of American history as the foundation of their growth as citizens.
Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

Make it harder to sneak in, but easier for guest workers

No serious nation in the age of terror can afford to have wide-open borders with millions of illegal aliens crossing at will. But along with making it much harder to sneak in, we need to make it easier for guest workers to enter the country legally and to work here as long as they obey the law. Millions of illegal immigrants are here because Americans are hiring them. They have jobs in your neighborhood and you know it. Keeping these hard-working people illegal makes them vulnerable to criminals and keeps them from playing responsible roles in our communities.

We need a guest worker program to ensure that guest workers pay taxes, get driver’s licenses, buy auto insurance, abide by the law, and that filters out criminals and potential terrorists. The program should not be an automatic qualification for citizenship, though eventual citizenship should be held out as an opportunity.

Source: Gingrich Communications website, www.newt.org Dec 1, 2006

1989: Let Tiananmen students overstay visas

Gingrich's first skirmish was over foreign policy--Bush's veto of a bill that would have allowed Chinese students to stay in the US after their visas expired. The brutal suppression of protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 had been seen across America. Chinese students' lives were put at risk as soon as they returned home. Supported by Gingrich, Republicans joined Democrats in attempting to override the veto, and Bush administration officials began to be wary of the gadfly from Georgia.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.124 Jun 1, 1995

Irish and Chinese immigrants overcame bigotry; so can blacks

It is fashionable for African-Americans to argue that forced immigration in the form of slavery hardly is comparable to immigration. Gingrich instead uses the lessons of history to argue that time and change heal wounds. The problems that so anger black Americans, he insists, came to be after 1965--the year of the Voting Rights Act.

"From 1607 until 1965 you have certain long sweeps that are more and more positive. We go from slavery to segregation to integration. We go from empowering wealthy white males to eliminating the poll tax and then giving women the vote, then making sure everybody can vote. We go from almost the very beginning to acquire property. Free blacks as early as the 1740s could acquire property."

Gingrich goes on to enumerate America's past hostility toward the Irish, Southern Europeans, and the Chinese. These immigrants' ability to overcome bigotry and succeed while so many black Americans languish is the prelude to the congressman's call for dismantling the welfare system.

Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 30 Jun 1, 1995

Other candidates on Immigration: Newt Gingrich on other issues:
Incoming Obama Administration:
Pres.Barack Obama
V.P.Joe Biden
State:Hillary Clinton
HHS:Tom Daschle
Staff:Rahm Emanuel
DOC:Judd Gregg
DHS:Janet Napolitano
DOC:Bill Richardson
DoD:Robert Gates
A.G.:Eric Holder
Treas.:Tim Geithner

Former Bush Administration:
Pres.George W. Bush
V.P.Dick Cheney
State:Colin Powell
State:Condi Rice
EPA:Christie Whitman

Former Clinton Administration:
Pres.Bill Clinton
HUD:Andrew Cuomo
V.P.Al Gore
Labor:Robert Reich
A.G.:Janet Reno
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Page last updated: May 28, 2011