Republican Newt Gingrich, who led the charges against reductions to legal immigration levels in the 1990s as House Speaker, is suggesting that President Donald Trump pass an amnesty for illegal alien “valedictorians” who have only remained in the United States thanks to former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
During an interview with Fox Business Channel, Gingrich said he has “always believed” in amnesty for DACA illegal aliens.
“I’ve always believed, for example, that the DREAMers, the young people who came here at 6 months, a year, two years, don’t even speak any language except English, went to high school here, got to be valedictorians, that it makes no sense to force them to leave the only country they’ve ever lived in,” Gingrich said.
“There are nuances to fixing this that can be done,” Gingrich said. “I also think having a focus on criminals makes a lot of sense. Virtually all Americans… that if you’re a criminal, we don’t need you in our neighborhood. So there’s a middle ground.”
Gingrich was responding to an interview Trump gave to 60 Minutes, where the president hinted at potentially working with congressional Democrats on an immigration bill that could include amnesty for some illegal aliens, including those in landscaping and the hotel industry.
“I’d love to do something about immigration,” Trump said. “Get the killers out. Get all the rough ones out. Get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for ten and 15 years, work a deal for them.”
“Now, there is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out. And there’s a large part of the country that think that they should be allowed to stay if they’re good people working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel, or doing something, right?” Trump said. “And in some cases, paying taxes. And there’s a large group of people who think that they should be allowed to stay.”
Gingrich has been a long-time supporter of mass immigration to the United States.
In the 1990s, then-Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX) was asked by then-President Bill Clinton to form a commission dedicated to solving the nation’s immigration problem.
Jordan ultimately recommended that legal immigration levels be drastically reduced to alleviate economic pressure on the working class and downward pressure on the U.S. social safety net.
Despite Jordan’s findings that mass immigration, where the U.S. resettles more than a million legal immigrants annually, negatively impacts working class and lower-middle class Americans, Gingrich led the charge to ensure that none of the congresswoman’s reforms on legal immigration were included in a final package sent to Clinton’s desk.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.
