Newt Gingrich Says Legalization Program Should Involve Sending 12 Million Immigrants Back
Newt Gingrich Says Legalization Program Should Involve Sending 12 Million Immigrants Back
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appeared on Jorge Ramos’ Sunday morning show, “Al Punto,” this weekend and suggested that the best way to deal with the 12 million undocumented workers currently living in the U.S. would be to convince them to go back to their home countries for a couple years in exchange for a temporary guest-worker visa:
RAMOS: Mr. Speaker, in your book, “Winning the Future,” you wrote, and I’m quoting, “everyone currently working in the United States illegally must return to their home country to apply for the worker visa program”…Is this realistic? Do you really think 12 million undocumented workers will voluntarily leave the United States?
GINGRICH: What I said was that we should have a program to have a legal guest-worker system. We should be very clear that we want to increase legal immigration…I think symbolically, you know, the McCain-Kennedy bill said you have to pay a $5,000 fine to the U.S. government. You can fly home, get the visa, and come back for less than $5,000. So you’re asking me — is it possible over a 2-3 year period that every person at some point go home and get the guest-worker permit — because you couldn’t do this in week. This would have to be a transition of 2-3 years. I think virtually everybody would it if they knew we were serious…
Ramos pressed Gingrich further to make sure he was serious:
RAMOS: Let me very clear about this, so you would actually ask 12 million undocumented people to voluntarily leave the United States so that they can become citizens?
GINGRICH: I’d ask them to go home, get the card, and come back. And again, how many people go home anyways on a regular basis?
In theory, Gingrich’s proposal sounds nice. In practice, his ideas spell a national nightmare.
To begin with, most undocumented immigrants don’t “go home on a regular basis.” In fact, most don’t go home at all because leaving the U.S. carries the high risk of not being able to get back in. Gingrich also doesn’t take into account what will happen to the millions of U.S. born children of immigrants or the vacant jobs and homes that would be left behind. He doesn’t provide any details on how exactly the U.S. government would be able to convince a population of immigrants who have feared few things more than deportation by federal immigration authorities that the government can suddenly be trusted overnight. Either way, it seems unlikely that a temporary worker visa that carries no promise of permanent residency or citizenship will serve as a strong incentive to uproot one’s entire family and return to an impoverished country for an undetermined number of years. Michele Waslin, Senior Policy Analyst at the Immigration Policy Center points out:
“Americans want a fair, practical solution. Expecting 12 million people — many of whom have lived and worked here for years and have US citizen children — to leave the U.S. and wait for a visa in a line that doesn’t currently exist seems rather farfetched.”
Despite his English-only stance, Gingrich has started both a Spanish-language twitter feed and website. When asked if he plans on running in the 2012 presidential race, Gingrich said he will come back and talk about it in January of 2011. Watch it:
14 Responses to “Newt Gingrich Says Legalization Program Should Involve Sending 12 Million Immigrants Back”
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His proposal does not make a lot of sense. If we are going to fix immigration, we need to it right and not with mediocre solutions. 12 million people will not leave the country, many have families in the U.S. and will be afraid of leaving their children and jobs behind. Reform should be practical in order to be effective and not push others (who cannot afford a ticket to go across the globe or return to a repressive nation)further underground
July 13th, 2009 at 4:36 pmNewt Gingrich has been totally schizophrenic in his outreach to Latinos. He calls Sotomayor a racist, then backs off. He’s against bilingual education, but he’s now doing outreach in Spanish.
It seems this extends into his thoughts on migration policy, now, too, as he’s asking folks to leave in order to come back in, for a guest worker program no less. It’s been pretty well proven that guest worker programs almost inevitably lead to exploitation.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:42 pmThis plan makes very little sense. Why should one have to leave to country to apply for a visa? I don’t have to visit the next state to mail a letter, there should be no reason to leave the country in order to file a form. If you want to give out temporary visas, fine. If you want to impose fines or make the cost of visas incredibly expensive, that sounds reasonable too, but in this day and age, why should the process of filing a form require physically traveling anywhere — even to a government office for that matter. Put the application on-line, sign people up and either grant or deny their application.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pmIllegal aliens are criminals and parasites, one and all. Their very presence here and practically everything they do on U. S. soil is illegal. They need to be ferreted out, rounded up like cattle, punished for their numerous crimes, then booted back to whence they snuck in from with such extreme prejudice that they will never, ever think of violating our sovereignty again. Enough is enough.
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July 13th, 2009 at 5:10 pmAztlan Buster is really scary. Is this who Newt is catering to?
July 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pmAztlan Buster says:
It’s people like Aztlan Buster that illustrate the need to do something about U.S. migration policy. Right now extremists like him, which have no respect for human dignity, are ruling the debate.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:42 pmSending 12 million immigrants back to their country in order to be legalized is NOT a common sense solution, but rather adds huge obstacles for immigrants who want to be contributing members of our country. Immigration reform needs to be something that works and doesn’t leave a vast number of people out. Let’s be realistic and see that we need CIR that is practical and quick. These hardworkers cannot wait any longer.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:10 pmALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF STOPPING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND SUPPORTING E-VERIFY CALL NOW! TODAY!
Don’t let down your guard?
ATTENTION! Because of the massive payments to illegal immigrants in California, their is a petition. Google–TAXPAYER REVOLUTION. Very few newspapers will mention this activist petition.
Some Californian lawmakers demand enforcing our immigration laws? But do they believe in rigid enforcement of E-Verify in the workplace? Andronovich, a Los Angeles city manager stated back in 2004 that illegal immigrant support attributed to $11. billion dollars in benefits. How much money did the Golden state taxpayers folk out since then?
If you–GOOGLE–illegal immigration you can research the true costs, the real numbers of those squatting here and the massive consequences? The most damaging is–irreversible OVERPOPULATION. There is a battle commencing in the House and Senate this week, to weaken E-Verify and the startling amendment to fund the original two layer border fence. Sen. Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano will try to table these new amendments or even kill them. Recall Reid nearly obliterated E-Verify, the extraction process that removes illegal immigrants from job placement. THESE NEW AMENDMENTS ARE IN INSTANT JEOPARDY, SO DEMAND RIGID ENFORCEMENT, NO AMNESTY AND NO MORE EXCUSES?
Go to the websites NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIALWATCH, CAPSWEB, HERITAGE FOUNDATION & AMERICANPATROL for facts not found in newspapers or even the government. THERE IS GATHERING STORM OF FURIOUS VOTERS from across America. We cannot, must not–STOP– THE BARRAGE ON THEIR SENATE AND CONGRESS. 202-224-3121 THE US TAXPAYER must remain vigilant, letting these politicians know whose in charge? That their jobs are on the line, like millions of American workers.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:04 pmwith such extreme prejudice that they will never, ever think of violating our sovereignty again.
In other words, every single undocumented person in this country should be killed. (After all, everyone of them is a parasite, & a criminal, & virtually nothing they do is legal.) That’s right in line w/ Gingrich’s approach to Iran.
Will the lust for blood ever leave this awful species?
July 13th, 2009 at 7:43 pmGuest worker programs are not about humans, they are about treating labor as a disposable asset. Paying a fine to leave and come back sounds like a business venture. Coyote-State?
July 13th, 2009 at 8:14 pmNo legislation of this nature will pass. If it did, the US would no longer be part of America. It would become a land locked within its own hate and it would be up to every other country in the Continent to continue to be America the free, the welcoming.
This is an inhumane and poorly thought-out plan. The sudden loss of 12M people (most of whom have family members in the US) from the fabric of our society would be an incredibly devastating blow to the economy and to our communities. It shows complete ignorance of the realities of migration.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:26 pmI see Brittancus is back, too, leaving his copy and paste comments all over the internet. Hate from Aztlan Busters and copy and paste comments from Brittancus. This is what these nativists do all day long. I don’t know how they find the time.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:47 pmDuring his tenure as Speaker Gingrigh was known for grandiose and delusional statements whose main intention was maximum discord. Guess he has not lost the knack. Clearly there is absolutely no serious thought behind this statement. The loss of that many workers and taxpayers (yeah you morons- undocumented people pay taxes too) would surely send our economy into an unrecoverable tailspin. And as to deranged haters such as s Aztlan Buster and Brittancus – you are clearly of the same ilk as Gunny Bush and Shawna Forde. Those organizations whose findings you are so fond of quoting? All hate groups. And we are building momentum out there, but it is for just equal and fair immigration reform. The only positive about blowhard wingnuts like Gingrich is that they re the equivalent of kicking a stack of garbage before you pick it up. Makes the roaches come out so you can deal with them.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:25 amNewt Gingrich is Wrong! People who want amnesty are Wrong! Mexico is a corrupt country that can’t provide for its own people, so they encourage their poor to flood the United States. This is morally wrong. It’s not America’s responsibility to provide jobs, welfare,etc. to illegal aliens. If 12 million Americans went to Mexico ilegally and demanded the same, they’d be laughed at and deported. What we have to do NEWT! Is enforce our immigration laws, Secure the borders, and use Attrition! That’s what will work, we don’t need to import more people. You also don’t need to pander to racist like Gorge Ramos. The Left wants massive immigration to change the demographics of the country to kill the GOP. It’s a brilliant strategy, but it’s false. The USA ended Segregation in the 1960’s, yet our society is returning to it: Bilingual? Bicultural? Spanish? Why not English? A couple of the top posters mention hate groups? What do you think La Raza “The Race”, La Mecha, and Aztlan are? They’re RACISTS! We all have civil rights, these groups want special rights! Because of their ethnicity and race. This is ridiculous and absurd. What we need is assimilation and unity. Not Ethnic Racism and balkaniztion. Immigrants who look like Salma Hayek or Paola Ruiz can stay, because they are a net gain, not a net loss on our society.
July 17th, 2009 at 8:25 pm