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Illegal Immigration: Newt Is Right

By: neoavatara (Diary)  |  November 23rd, 2011 at 01:38 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Newt Gingrich is today getting vilified on many conservative blogs for his moderate stance on illegal immigration in last night’s CNN/Heritage Foundation debate.

He stated the following:

“If you’ve come here recently, you have no ties to this country, you ought to go home, period,” Gingrich said.  “If you’ve been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you’ve been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.”

Challenged by Michele Bachmann — “I don’t agree that you would make 11 million workers legal, because that, in effect, is amnesty” — Gingrich stuck to his guns.  “I do not believe that the people of the United States are going to take people who have been here a quarter century, who have children and grandchildren, who are members of the community, who may have done something 25 years ago, separate them from their families, and expel them.”

I have, for several years, argued for this exact strategy in dealing with illegal immigration, on this blog and elsewhere.

Let us accept a couple truths, which Gingrich reiterated last night.  One, we have a border problem with illegal immigration.  Two, there is no majority sentiment in this country to return illegal aliens that have lived he for decades, raised their families, and have otherwise lived within the bounds of the law.

Accepting those facts, Gingrich’s stance makes the most sense.  Yes, there is a hint of amnesty; but I think the counter to that argument is that this is not full amnesty.

Why?  This is what I would propose, and I think Gingrich would basically accept:

1.  Secure the border.  

Use a wall, use border troops, use virtual defenses.  Whatever it takes, but it must be secured to avoid a repeat of the Reagan-era failure on immigration reform.

2.  Find a path to legal residence for illegal aliens.  

This is where Gingrich and myself depart from prior amnesty proposals.  All illegal aliens should accept they committed a crime by coming to this country.

By accepting this as a crime, they have two choices. One, allow them to gain some sort of legal status, that allows them to become naturalized residents.  However, by this path, they would be prevented from ever applying for citizenship, as their punishment for coming here illegally.

The second path would ask them to return to their home country, and then apply for a green card like all law abiding persons.  Via this second path, they could then apply for citizenship in due course.

This would therefore NOT be amnesty, but a punishment system by which we legalize these persons, while at the same time punishing them by never allowing them become citizens because of their crime.

Gingrich is basically correct on this proposal.  There is no other logical way forward, and the sooner conservatives accept that, the better.  Deportation is a nonstarter for event the most extreme of conservatives.  Michelle Bachmann attacked Gingrich on immigration, but provided no alternative.  Romney attacked Gingrich, although he basically supported similar plans back in 2007.

Gingrich is now clearly shifting to a general election platform, much like Romney.  This is a smart move on his part.  Conservatives can decry his stance as ‘amnesty’, but such talk is naive and misses the point.  Ultimately, you have to deal with illegal immigrants in some way short of deportation, because deportation will never happen.  Gingrich is simply accepting the reality, and presenting the best plan available considering those facts.

This was cross-posted on Neoavatara.

 

COMMENTS

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  • jackbenimble

    Newt is presenting the same false choice that we have seen a hundred times before. Essentially the argument is that it is difficult or inhumane to deport them so therefore our only other option is to legalize them.

    There are in fact a whole range of things we can do in between these two choices. Personally, I favor basically ignoring the illegals and instead strengthening and rigorously enforcing our laws against employing them.

    Very large numbers of illegal aliens would self-deport if we made it very difficult for them to find jobs. They would make this decision voluntarily for the same reason they uprooted themselves from family, friends, culture and country and broke our laws in the first place which would be for a “better life”. I would probably look favorably on a program where we gave them money for a bus ticket home but generally most of these deportations would be at their own expense. It would be tough to argue that it was inhumane because their choices to leave would be in most cases voluntary.

    If they had really put down the long-term roots in our country that Newt is talking about, then many of them would qualify for our extremely generous family reunification aspects of our immigration law and they would have a path to citizenship in the proper manner.

  • deVere

    He was southern regional coordinator of Nelson Rockefeller’s brief presidential campaign in 1968, advocated Bush expanding medicare, supports the “individual mandate”, sat on that loveseat with Nancy Pelosi selling “climate change”, endorsed Dede Scozzafava, denounced Paul Ryan’s conservative budget as “right-wing social engineering”, and now has endorsed amnesty for illegals aliens. And then there’s that mysterious million$ he got from Fannie Mae for, he says “doing nothing”.

    I support Rick Perry, and hope that Newt Gingrich is not the Republican candidate for President. Personally I’d even prefer Mitt Romney in preference to Newt. Mitt is also a Liberal, but at least he’s been loyal to his chronically ill wife.

    • federalfarmer1

      Newt hasn’t been perfect, but the smear jobs are so over the top absurd that you must be a kos plant.

      • deVere

        You just put a pejorative label on me. That’s what some people do when the facts are not on their side.

        In 1988 Al Gore was the most conservative Democrat running for POTUS. The others were Mike Dukakis, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon, and Joe Biden. According to CNN, Gore ran his campaign as, “a Southern centrist, [who] opposed federal funding for abortion. He favored a moment of silence for prayer in the schools and voted against banning the interstate sale of handguns.”

        It is reasonable to criticize Rick Perry’s judgment for once having been a Democrat, as Ronald Reagan also once was. It’s not reasonable to criticize him for supporting Al Gore that year. That was just “making lemonade”.

        I would never claim that Rick Perry is a perfect candidate. He certainly is not! I do think he’s the best Republican running for POTUS right now, and I hope he is nominated and elected.

        • lucasblack

          You forgot Bruce Babbitt!

          • davenj1

            First off, we are not going to deport every illegal person here, unless we line up school buses from the Mexican border to Connecticut. So the “just deport them all” talk is utter nonsense. Secondly, the problem occurred in the 1960s when a highly successful program- the Bracero program- which brought in migrant workers legally, was abandoned for one that stressed family reunification. The program “failed” in the minds of some because the worker visas were not portable and one needed employer sponsorship and that led to widely publicized worker abuses (remember Cesar Chavez?).
            Newt says 25 years. I say 15 years. If you have been here illegally for 15 years, then they should get an expedited pathway to citizenship. For the people in the middle, then they go on a probationary type thing. For those here less then three years, they get deported. That makes the “deportation” process more manageable. Along the way, we assess the remainder and weed out the criminals and such. The probationary people would have to pay a “fine,” prove employment and English proficiency and be a contributing member to the community (haggle about that definition along the way).
            Also, this could go hand-in-hand with better border security measures. And why do we talk so much about securing our southern border? How about pressuring Mexico to secure their northern border?
            Note: Under the Bracero program, there was circular immigration and the average length of stay was three years. Today, it is about 10 years.

    • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

      …who worked on Al Gore’s election campaign.

      Seriously, if you’re going to bring up Rockefeller for Newt, at least be honest and bring up Gore for Perry.

      And Newt didn’t endorse amnesty. As a matter of fact, his position is exactly the same as Rick Perry’s. I’m not saying you gotta like or support the guy, but you can’t say Newt supports amnesty and Perry doesn’t when their positions are identical.

      I soooo can’t wait until this primary season is over.

  • davenj1

    YES- workplace enforcement is very important. That is why E-Verify should be mandatory. The incidence of false positive hits is very low and there is an appeal process. Fines should be stiff and swift. If you dry up the labor pool, they won’t come here. But the “build a wall/ deport them” people believe they come here to have babies and use our social services. They come here for JOBS and a better wage than is offered in their native country. Remove that incentive, they won’t come. Period! The solution is so commonsense and Newt is the first one to talk commonsense.

  • NeoKong

    You cannot have an all size fits one approach to illegal aliens. It cannot be all or nothing.
    When our own govt. has made it so attractive for people to come here illegally you cannot fault them for doing so.
    It’s like they were invited.

    First step.
    Secure the border. Lock it down like it was Area 51.

    Step two.
    Turn off the spigot.
    We have stop allowing the children of non- residents to become citizens. That is the number one draw followed by all the welfare type benefits that the parents will receive.

    Step three is that we have to enforce the E-verify system and make sure that illegal aliens are not taking jobs here.
    It’s tough to set up shop with no money.

    A few simple but realistic measures like those and many illegals will go home on their own or not come in the first place.

    Now we deal with those who are still here.
    I won’t go into all the variations of how but to suggest we can deport them all is simply not realistic.
    If someone has been here twenty or more years then the time to deport them has passed for most of them.

    Even bank robbers have a statute of limitations.