Newt Gingrich warns mass deportations could backfire on Trump

Former Clinton-era House Speaker Newt Gingrich has poured cold water on President-elect Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportations.

Speaking with Martin Pengelly of The Guardian for an interview published Monday, Gingrich claimed that it’s unlikely that the mass deportations promised by Trump will actually occur, especially for illegals who’ve been granted special protections.

“I’d be very surprised if you see any significant effort to change the game for people who are here legally,” he said, referencing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, etc. “I just think there’s a very small faction of the party that’s rabid about this.”

Gingrich has long been an advocate for legal immigration:

“It’s nonsense to say somebody who came here when they were two, only speaks English, graduated as a high school valedictorian, and is currently a nurse or a doctor should be deported,” Gingrich added, specifically referencing DACA recipients.

“We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of whatever country their parents came from, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans? I think [the Trump administration has to] realize that there are gradations here that we’re dealing with and try to think through, how do you both meet the long-term identity and national security interests of the country and meet the human concerns. And I think it’s a real challenge,” he continued.

Wrapping up his remarks, he stressed that trying to remove illegals with protected statuses will be extraordinarily difficult.

“We are a nation of law despite some of the things that have been said and I think that if you have legal standing in the American system, it’s very difficult to deport you,” he said. “On the other hand, if you have no legal standing, it’s pretty easy to deport you, right? And I’m for doing the easy first. That’s why we should give [Dreamers] legal status, as a practical matter.”

Gingrich also warned that the pursuit of mass deportations could backfire on Trump.

“Lincoln once said that with popular sentiment, anything is possible; without popular sentiment, nothing is possible,” he said. “Well, you get very many human stories about mothers or babies or children being deported, then support for the deportation program will collapse.”

Maybe, though it should be stressed that polling has consistently shown that a majority of Americans support mass deportations:

According to a CNN report published Saturday, Gingrich isn’t alone in tempering expectations. Even Trump’s own border czar, Tom Homan, has begun backtracking on mass deportations.

“Homan and lawmakers are using current government funding levels to craft a plan that targets between 1 and 2 million undocumented immigrants who are eligible for removal as quickly as possible,” the network reported, citing anonymous sources.

One to two million deportations is far fewer than what the president-elect had promised on the campaign trail. Though in fairness, Homan stressed that his ability to deport vast sums of illegals depends on how much money Congress is willing to allocate him.

“It all depends on the funding I get from the Hill,” he explained to CNN.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview on Fox News’s “Hannity,” Gingrich slammed outgoing President Joe Biden for working to make Trump’s life harder when he assumes office.

Listen:

(Video Credit: Fox News)

“I hold my breath to get through seven more days of Joe Biden,” he said. “I mean, every day, he seems to find a new way to weaken America, to make Trump’s job harder, to assert things that are patently false.”

“And I think, for the country’s sake, the sooner we can get to that inauguration, the sooner we can say goodbye as he goes back to Delaware, the safer the country will be. And until that happens, I frankly remain worried about what he may do in the next few days that’ll be truly destructive,” he added.

Vivek Saxena

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