Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker and presidential candidate, said part of his own Republican Party was “rabid” about immigration and predicted that Donald Trump’s suggestion that it could deport people with legal status as well as millions of undocumented people would not happen.
“I would be very surprised if you see a significant effort to make a difference for people who are here legally,” Gingrich said, weeks before Trump returned to the White House. “I just think there is a very small faction of the party that is enraged about this.”
He also warned that public support for mass deportations would “collapse” if stories started coming out “about mothers, babies or children being deported.”
The president-elect may not welcome Gingrich’s intervention. After all, Trump won last year’s election by promising mass deportations involving the armed forces and detention camps. He singled out ultra-hardliners, including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, and suggested his administration would try to remove children and regulars, telling NBC: “I don’t want to break up families, so the only way to not break up the family is that you keep them together and you have to send them all away.
The fate of millions of so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who were children when brought to the United States, is also at issue, and Trump’s vow to take away the right to citizenship, a right protected by the 14th Amendment but which Trump says he will overturn. by decree.
Amid widespread predictions of chaos and protests, Gingrich said he was “passionately in favor of trying to help find a path to create legality for Dreamers,” a stance that could put him less at risk. disagreement with Trump, given Trump’s suggestion that he might agree to a deal. negotiate on the issue.
Gingrich continued: “It makes no sense to say that someone who came here when he was two years old, speaks only English, graduated high school valedictorian and is currently a nurse or doctor should be expelled. We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of their parents’ country of origin, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans?
“…I think (the Trump administration needs to) realize that there are gradations here that we face, and try to think about how you can both meet the long-term interests of the identity and national security of the country and answer these questions. human concerns. And I think that’s a real challenge.
Now 81, Gingrich served as a Georgia representative from 1979 to 1999, the last four years as House speaker. In 2012, he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. A prolific author, he remains close to Trump, to whom he offered advice during the attempted overturn of the 2020 election.
Gingrich spoke with the Guardian to mark the release of Journey to America with Newt and Callista Gingrich, a PBS documentary made with his wife about immigrants who have made major contributions to American public life.
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“We are a nation of law despite some of the things that have been said (by Trump and his allies),” he said. “And I think if you have legal status in the American system, it’s very difficult to deport you. On the other hand, if you have no legal capacity, it’s pretty easy to deport you, right? And I’m all for doing the easy thing first. “That’s why we should give (Dreamers) legal status, from a practical point of view.”
With that in mind, Gingrich laid out a seven-step immigration plan, which Trump might consider.
Gingrich issued another warning: “Lincoln once said that with popular sentiment, anything is possible; without popular sentiment, nothing is possible. Well, if you hear many human stories about mothers, babies, or children being deported, support for the deportation program will collapse.
