Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich was born on June 17, 1943 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Gingrich attended Emory University and received his Ph.D. from Tulane University. In the 1970s he taught history and geography at West Georgia College. While teaching at West Georgia he ran for United States House of Representatives several times until he won in November of 1978. In his past he wrote books such as Contract with America among others but he is most famous for winning Time “Man of the Year” in 1995 after he ended the 40 years of Democratic majority control. Recently Gingrich resigned from Speaker of the House, his former position, and has since begun to run for President of the United States.

Gingrich has been no stranger to the mainstream political media attracting enough attention for people to say he has "been a lightning rod for controversy ever since he steered his party to the majority in 1994 and took control of the speaker's gavel." In 2008 he was considered by many to be the top contender for the Republican nomination for president along with Herman Cain. Since then, those who had touted Gingrich's resilience were soon vindicated. After then-front-runner Herman Cain was damaged by allegations that he had sexually harassed employees during his tenure as head of the National Restaurant Association, Gingrich gained support, and quickly became a contender in the race. By December of 2011, Gingrich was leading in the national polls.

Gingrich is very open about his views on illegal immigration and he is a strong supporter of strong tightened border between us and Mexico. His views advocate doing anything and everything possible to stop illegal immigration and to use everything he has at his disposal, including militarizing the border, something that President Bush was heavily opposed to. Due to the level of drug smuggling along the border the possibility for corruption is large and if you can’t trust the man next to you then it’s very hard to do your job. While this theory has gained the support of many, others feel that he become too radical and may resort to just spending billions of dollars to fix the problem and most, including me, feel that just throwing money at the border will not get our country anywhere. Newt Gingrich is continuing to campaign across America boasting a strong border everywhere he goes gaining and losing support. Whether Gingrich’s views get him into the White House has yet to be seen.

Hide and Seek With a 72 Hour Head Start.

               Illegal immigrants are flocking into our country at a rate of almost two people every minute. Statistics like this were unheard of decades ago when many immigration policies were made which is why so many of them are out of date and not suitable for the challenges illegal immigration is posing today. One of the laws that is receiving most attention and really has nobody on its side is the 72 hour deportation notice. This rule states that when an immigrant who is staying for a specified period of time overstays he’s selected time period, he has 72 to leave or he will be deported back to his original country. Once an immigrant has received this notice it is very rare that he or she will comply with it instead or running. I don’t recommend actually asking a fugitive but if you run into one, ask him or her if they could do with a 72 hour head start. If an immigrant has a car and 72 hours they could relocate and assimilate into any part of the United States.

               This law has been opposed by basically everyone except for a small group of Hispanic Americans because they feel it’s unlawful to forcefully remove a person without giving them a period of time to collect their things or to get ready to go back to Mexico. To this I would say that it is also unlawful for illegal immigrants to overstay their due when they are in our country. If the 72 hour notice is repealed this will give local authorities a much better window to make an arrest and would give immigrants a very small window, if any, to run away and hide. The 72 hour law is being heavily debated in UK currently and hopefully if the UK repeals the law, then the United States will follow suit assuming the UK shows improvements on deporting their immigrants.

               The 72 hour deportation law is an antiquated and out of date law that was implemented to show that the United States is trying to be “fair” or “kind” to its immigrants. I feel that this rule shouldn’t even be debated on, instead, we should quickly act dispose of this rule and any other loopholes that illegal immigrants are using in order to expose and exploit our nation’s security. Removing this law should be the start of a new, nationwide, and tightening of immigration and reform laws.  

A Crash Course in Border Patrol

In my last protest I talked about putting the National Guard along the border, this post will take place on the opposite end of the spectrum which argues that civilians should be put along the border to defend our country from illegal immigration. It seems the border control just can’t seem to get any respect because in Arizona, a group calling itself the Minuteman Project believes they can do the border patrols job even better. They have stationed dozens of civilian men and women along the Mexican border in a controversial effort to track down undocumented immigrants. The leader of this organization, James Gilchrist, says the project has around 450 volunteers that are able and willing to defend our Nations Border. Gilchirst claims they aided in the arrest of 146 undocumented immigrants and that they can cover the 23 miles Northeast of Nogales, AZ that they have set up camp in.  

This act has sparked many debates about whether or not we should deploy volunteer civilians to the border or if these people are heroes defending our country or vigilantes trying to pass the time. People like James Gilchrist and the Minuteman Project agree that it’s time for people like you and me to stand up and go protect our own borders and join in the effort. People on the other side of this argument agree that putting civilians along the border is a terrible idea because now we aren’t just putting illegal aliens in danger; we are also throwing civilians into the equation which is guaranteed to complicate the problem.

The U.S. and Mexican governments have labeled these people as vigilantes but some say that they are “Peaceful protestors” protesting the government’s ineptitude for stopping illegal immigration. In my eyes it’s clear that these people aren’t doing anything other than getting in the way of the people that actually know what they are doing. They claim they are defending our country from people who are coming here to commit crimes, but we all know that most immigrants come here for family and to get jobs. The only serious crimes are being committed by the vigilantes along the border. What is essentially happening is that we are putting a bunch Texans with guns along the border and screaming “Alamo.” They run in and “detain” people at gunpoint believing they are defending their county. People are going to get seriously hurt and some could be killed. The bottom line in this argument is that untrained citizens are very bad at doing things that require training for what I hope would be rather obvious reasons.  As I have stated in previous blog posts the people that have the power to stop illegal immigrations are Congress.

Soldiers on the border

With the illegal immigration showing no signs of slowing down one must ask if the United States Border Patrol is doing enough.  Up until recently the borders were never an issue and the border patrol was not asked to do nearly as much as they have been recently. The United States Border Patrol brings in over 100,000 illegal immigrants every year. A decade ago these numbers would be staggering and nobody would argue that they aren’t doing enough but now more and more illegal aliens are pouring into the United States and the border patrol is overwhelmed which has led to the militarization of the U.S. Mexico Border.

In 2006 the Bush administration deployed 10,000 National Guard troops to reinforce the border, a decision that I still agree with and a decision that seemed like it would solve the problem along the border but still illegal immigration is rising, many people feel the answer is to deploy even more troops to the border. The argument here is: “Is this the job of our National Guard?” Many people think it is because they are protecting the American people and preserving the sanctity of our nation’s borders. Others say we have our border patrol for a reason and that we should reinforce them and leave the rest to Congress. I do believe that this is one of our National Guards jobs but I’m still opposed to militarization because there are much more important problems to consider.

One of these problems is the threat of invasion from foreign countries. It’s no surprise that The United States is not liked by many countries on this planet we call home and if the unlikely scenario of a foreign country invading the U.S. takes place while our troops are along the border we will be almost defenseless. I was sure to say the word “unlikely” because there are very few countries that would attempt such a thing but the true purpose of our National Guard is to be prepared for things like this and they aren’t prepared if they are along the border. The other reason I feel we shouldn’t militarize the border is because Congress has the power to stop illegal immigration and that is where our efforts should be focused on. When Congress can figure out a way to make becoming a U.S. citizen quicker and easier, then this argument will not be necessary at all.

How the Gingrinch stole Christmas

               This title is actually misleading depending on your stance on illegal immigration. For approximately 3.5 million illegal immigrants he would be saving Christmas and a whole lot more. Gingrich decided to stray form the views of his fellow Republican candidates by saying that he would strongly consider giving legal status for illegal immigrants who had been in the country for many years, had strong family ties here, children/grandchildren, and most importantly in my opinion, no criminal record.

The Pew Center decided to calculate how many illegal immigrants might meet Mr. Gingrich’s standards and they came up with approximately about 35 percent of the estimated 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States have been here for 15 years or more. This is troubling because we clearly are having problems deporting illegal aliens but that’s another story. About 46 percent of adult illegal immigrants, so about 4.6 million people, are parents of minor children, the center found. This would mean that we would be holding on to a large amount of our illegal friends. Making all of them U.S. citizens would take time and who’s to say that the other illegals don’t just continue what they’re doing after this plan is executed.

This is all assuming you believe the words of a politician and who wouldn’t?! After that you have to realize that the centers investigation didn’t exactly match up with the actual words that came out of Mr. Gingrich’s mouth. Those words being: “If you’ve been here for 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 are going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.” Now the Pew claims they didn’t have enough information to figure out how many aliens had been here for 25 years. To hassle the churches for information isn’t exactly the best thing to do morally and the number of Latinos that attend church several times a month is very high anyways. I think Mr. Gingrich is putting on his own experiment to see whether or not taking a positive side on illegal immigration will help him in the polls coming up. Since Obamas attempts to crack down on illegal immigration many in the Latino community are crying out for a president that will support them and their illegal friends. While I agree with Gingrich’s plan I don’t think he’ll stick to it and if he does I think the criteria for citizenship will be must more strict.

Survival.

The human is a remarkable machine, a machine that can go without food for three weeks and go without a single drop of water for three days. When compared to the rest of the animal kingdom our bodies are fragile however we are able to survive for decades assuming accidents are avoided and our bodies are taken care of. It isn’t the body that isn’t what is remarkable, but it is the spirit where we locate the true potential for survival. You see if you place a person in the middle of any town in the United States and said; “Survive” they would not only keep their already bleak situation from deteriorating, but they would most likely improve the conditions they are in. This is why illegal immigration is such a problem in the United States, because people can survive on the minimal rights that we give them.

You see, when a person crosses the border odds are that they have a family friend or know someone who is already in America. Here they can find a place to sleep and a roof over their heads. People rent out apartments and invite their illegal relatives and friends over to live with them. They use food stamps to help obtain food and drinks so that now they have all they need to live on. Illegal immigrants are used to rough conditions and if any average person is willing to sacrifice a few rights and live in a more poverty stricken lifestyle then there are many ways for a person to get bye. As previously stated in my last post certain states allow illegal immigrants to obtain a drivers license and a car. Now the immigrant has a house, food, water, a car, and an income when he finds a job, all the makings for a reasonable lifestyle in America.

When we look at it from this point of view all that is necessary is to take away a few of these necessities and then life becomes unbearable and would make coming to the United States much more difficult decision to make. By eliminating these rights we are essentially taking away things they need to live which is some ways could be considered a form of murder if people want to go that far. This is a decision that cannot be considered a “good” or “bad” decision until it is already made.

The Great Wall of America

In July of 2008 Congress decided to erect a Wall that would span 2,200 mile across the America-Mexico border. This wall would cost 2.2 billion dollars (roughly) so about a million dollars per mile of fence put up. Since the fence was put up, illegal immigration has declined but many people believe it is the first step to sealing our country off from the world. People fear that what now is an iron fence will soon become a steel curtain like the one that fell over Russia before The Cold War. Protests over the fence have taken place all over Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona saying that the fence will alienate our neighbors to the South. All of this however is pure speculation and is just another reason Hispanic Americans want to tear it down.

Building a fence isn’t going to stop people from getting in, The Immigration and Naturalization Service released a quote that says “Illegal immigration keeps people from getting out of the country.” As strange as this sounds, it’s the truth. Illegal immigrants often times don’t bring their families over the border because they are likely to be separated based on the condition of the children. Illegal immigrants usually cross by themselves, get a job and send money back into Mexico to support their family, and then they leave. The fence has made that task much harder to do because of the way it was erected. With support beams built on the Mexican side getting over from Mexico is still very physically demanding but slightly easier.

Although we have made getting into the states more demanding physically, when your family is depending on you there is little that a fence can do to keep you out. Instead, people are begging to believe that we need to stop them motivationally. As in, make the risk must greater than the reward for illegally crossing the border. Take away any rights that are given to humans, not just citizens. Things like applying for a loan, or food stamps. Many states are beginning to make it a requirement for you to bring your visa to the DMV when you go get your driver’s license or license plate. I believe this is a very good idea but this will not go over very well among the Hispanic American population because essentially we are saying that Illegal Aliens aren’t people. That is something that Congress will never hear the end of and something that we as Americans will have to put up with. Is all of this worth it to slow down illegal immigration? Do we have the right to decide who is human and who isn’t?