by William Neikirk
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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he is “sickened” that President Bush and Congress went on vacation “while young Americans in our cities are massacred by people who should not be here.”
In a newsletter released today, Gingrich cited the recent execution-style murders of three college-bound students in Newark as evidence that “there is a war here at home, and it is even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Another student survived a gunshot wound.
Two of four suspects in that case are illegal immigrants “or aliens,” as Gingrich called them, who had been charged with other crimes in the U.S. but yet were not detained by authorities. One is from Peru, the other from Nicaragua.
The Georgia Republican, now with a conservative think tank in Washington who still has his eye on the presidency, called on Bush and Congress to come back to town in a special session for three days to deal with the problem by passing a bill to identify illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. He first mentioned this case in Ames, Iowa, where he spoke at a Republican gathering Saturday night.
Although Gingrich has sometimes stepped over the line with his rhetoric, this one could resonate with people because of the linkage between illegal immigration and violent crime. Some opponents of a recent immigration have accused supporters of supporting amnesty. Now, to that, they could add, “amnesty for felons” to try to give it more punch.
But don’t expect Bush and our leaders to heed the former speaker’s call for immediate action. He isn’t speaker anymore.
Gingrich said our leaders should pass a law setting up a speedy national identification system by January of next year to detect illegal immigrants who are also felons. They should be detained, he said, and after they do time in prison, then they would be deported.
He said the U.S. government “played a role” in the murders because it did not identify and detain felons who happened to be illegal immigrants.
“More talk and more pious hand-wringing while doing nothing is just politics and bureaucracy as usual,” he said. “We should demand more of our leaders, or we should get new leaders.”
He meant President Bush, obviously, and the leaders of both houses of Congress. That sounds like a harsh thing to say about the president form one’s own party.
He said he was “outraged” that the government failed to protect the Newark students.” As an American, I am sickened that the political leadership of America could continue to go on vacation and do nothing, even when there was the most painful and tragic proof of the failure of our current system.”
One of the suspects, Jose Lachira Carranza, from Peru, had been indicted last month for raping a five-year-old girl and threatening to kill her family and also had been charged with assaulting patrons in a bar. He pleaded innocent to the latest murders. The other suspect, Rodolfo Godinez, from Nicaragua, also has been charged with previous crimes but was never deported, said Gingrich.