Gingrich says Previous Amnesty Was Flawed

By Frosty Wooldridge

Newt Gingrich lacks an understanding of the consequences of promoting mass amnesty.  The 1986 amnesty failed on all counts. It gave 3.1 million illegal alien migrants full amnesty. They brought in their next of kin which amounted to several million more immigrants.  Congress failed to protect the borders, which deluged America with another 20 million illegal aliens.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for Immigration Reform, www.fairus.org , talked about the failed amnesties and what another amnesty will mean for citizens of the United States.

“Evidently undaunted by the heat Rick Perry recently felt when he endorsed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, Newt Gingrich dropped a similar bombshell during last week’s Republican debate by announcing that he supports amnesty.Gingrich acknowledged he regrets supporting the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Amnesty Act because it failed to deliver the promised enhanced border security and ultimately granted amnesty to 3 million illegal aliens, not the 300,000 planned,” said Stein. “Despite the debacle, and the subsequent decades of illegal immigration fueled by expectations of another round of amnesty, Gingrich wants to do it yet again.

“The Gingrich Amnesty Plan – inasmuch as it’s a plan at this stage – is predicated on not separating illegal alien families that have been residing long term in the U.S. by offering them amnesty, “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.”

“The Gingrich Amnesty Plan begs a fundamental question,” said Stein. “How would the government ever have the resources to investigate the claims of 13 million illegal aliens regarding how long they’ve been here? Rent receipts, church records, self-attestation? Doing that would impose a staggering burden on a bureaucracy that is already maxed out, and any expedited process would involve simply rubber-stamping applications and represent a national security threat.

“Besides, amnesty – regardless of its scope – just makes a chaotic system worse because it rewards lawbreaking, encourages more and is fundamentally unfair to those who do play by the rules.

“Another flaw in the Gingrich Amnesty Plan is that it ignores the fact that the separation of the family occurred when an illegal alien initially made a conscious decision to enter the U.S. illegally, knowing full well that if they were caught, it would cause disruption to the family. It is the people who break laws who are responsible for the consequences to their families, not the law itself.

“Amnesty doesn’t work. It didn’t work in 1986 when an estimated 300,000 illegal aliens were expected to apply and 3 million showed up. And it won’t work now when the U.S. has an estimated 13 million illegal aliens. If the 1986 amnesty proved anything, it demonstrated the magnet effect. The fact that Gingrich wants to legalize people who came just after the 1986 amnesty shows that he (like much of the left) has forgotten that we’ve been there, done that. And it doesn’t work.”

DOJ Lawsuit Against Utah’s Immigration Law Exposes Administration’s Blatant Political Agenda

“Utah is now the fourth state (AZ, AL, SC) to be sued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for trying to enforce federal immigration laws that the Obama administration refuses to enforce,” said Stein. “According to the DOJ complaint, H.B. 497 is preempted by federal authority over immigration policy and is therefore unconstitutional.

“While DOJ has acted aggressively to prevent implementation of H.B. 497, a law that mirrors federal immigration statutes and calls for strict enforcement, it “conveniently” refused to block two other Utah immigration bills that extend state work permits and residency to illegal aliens.

“The obvious double standard DOJ is applying in Utah – suing the state to prevent it from enforcing immigration laws, while giving it a pass on its guest worker law – reveals the administration’s true agenda. DOJ is being used to punish and intimidate states that interfere with the administration’s effort to grant backdoor amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, while American taxpayers foot the bill.”

First Phase of Backdoor Amnesty Officially Begins
Will GOP Candidates Address It – Can Congress Stop It?

“After months of covert planning, implementation of administrative amnesty is now officially underway,” said Stein. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memos FAIR obtained recently indicate that ICE attorneys will now begin reviewing illegal alien removal cases for the purpose of administratively closing those that do not meet narrow ICE “priorities.”

“Under the priority guidelines set by the June 17 Morton Memo, suspected terrorists, convicted felons, gang members, and those who entered the country illegally within the last three years are priorities for removal. Among those who will be eligible to stay in the U.S. are illegal aliens who meet the criteria for the failed DREAM Act – came to U.S. before the age of 16, been here for at least 5 years, completed high school – and those with a “very long-term presence” or “compelling” ties in the U.S.

“Illegal aliens whose removal cases are administratively closed will also be eligible for work authorization, imposing additional competition for scare jobs that 23 million Americans are scrambling to find.

“The developing expansion of administrative amnesty is the most important issue for presidential candidates to address. President Obama should be pressed on his use of executive action to circumvent Congress and secretly dole out de facto legal status to potentially millions of illegal aliens. At the same time, Republican candidates must be challenged by media and voters to outline what steps they would take, if any, to undo Obama’s total reorganization of DHS and corruption of our immigration system.

“Congress seems to be getting nowhere trying to retake control of immigration policy. Subpoenas, investigations and threats of resource cuts are falling on deaf ears at DHS. Meanwhile, the American public and Members of Congress are being given little to no insight into the background and number of illegal aliens that will benefit from backdoor amnesty. How much longer can the usurpation of Congress be ignored now that amnesty is officially underway?”

You may contact Dan Stein at www.fairus.org

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Frosty Wooldridge is a member of the board at FAIR.