Jon Caldara of Colorado’s Independence Institute says immigration policy has become as emotionally divisive an issue as abortion, and the over-the-top, black-and-white reaction to Newt Gingrich’s sensible suggestion for immigration reform this week is evidence.<\/p>\n
The heart of Gingrich’s proposal was for a guest worker program which is essential to any immigration reform. Presently, the U.S. creates the perverse magnet of the world’s greatest migrant labor market – but without the work papers to make it legal. Gingrich and others sensibly propose a guest worker program in addition to a the traditional track of citizenship.<\/p>\n
“The Krieble Foundation is a very good red card program that says you get to be legal, but you don’t get a pass to citizenship,” Gingrich said at Tuesday’s Heritage-sponsored presidential debate. “And so there’s a way to ultimately end up with a country where there’s no more illegality, but you haven’t automatically given amnesty to anyone… I would urge all of you to look at the Krieble Foundation Plan.”<\/p>\n
If that’s the first you’ve heard of Newt’s “red card” comments, you’re not the first. Media coverage largely ignored them.<\/p>\n
That’s because Gingrich’s GOP opponents went straight for immigration red meat rather than engage in a serious discussion. Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney both screamed “amnesty” – a calculated term to inflame the debate. And the MSM, eager for political conflict, followed them right down the rabbit hole.<\/p>\n
This knee jerk came from Gingrich’s nuanced answer on a “humane” solution to the already 12 million illegals in the country today. But Romney & Co. reacted as if the only solution is to send troops into every corner of America and round up a population the size of Ohio for deportation. This is absurd, of course. All the more so because Flip-flop Mitt knows better, having once been on the other said of the issue, calling in 2007 for “permanent residency or citizenship” for the “12 million or so that are here illegally.”<\/p>\n
Oops, as Rick Perry might say.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, Gingrich likes the intellectual conceit of referring to things like the “Krieble Foundation plan” instead of the plain English of “guest worker permits.” But his comprehensive solution of border enforcement, worker permits, and citizenship is the path to real reform. It is also the only path for a Republican Party whose negative, nativist “secure the borders, secure the borders, secure the borders” mantra is fast alienating the fastest-growing minority in America, Hispanics.<\/p>\n
Divisive politics is for Occupiers and Obama. Republicans should ignore immigration’s black and white extremes and build a red coalition – starting with the red card program.<\/p>\n