Amid speculation that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is among presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s top choices for vice president, Univision News explained that Gingrich is unlikely to to “help rescue votes” from those disgruntled by Trump, including Latinos, because Gingrich’s immigration plans haven’t been “well-received by the immigrant community” in the past.
Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric has made him extremely unpopular with Latino voters, is rumored to be considering Gingrich as his pick for vice president, a potential outcome championed by many Fox News personalities. Univision News pointed out that one flaw with a possible Gingrich vice presidency is that Gingrich wouldn’t necessarily help solve Trump’s Latino problem due to his controversial past proposals on immigration.
According to Univision News, the immigrant community didn’t receive Gingrich’s 2012 plans to reform immigration well because it included “setting up citizen committees, similar to World War II-era draft boards” to determine who among the undocumented “should become a resident.” It didn’t extend a pathway to citizenship, required the newly minted residents to “pay for their own health insurance” and only included “the undocumented immigrants left out of President Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty.” Gingrich was also in favor of a “federal registration system for immigrants, which he compared to a FedEx tracking system.” From the July 13 Univision News article:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is one of several potential candidates for Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, which the presumptive Republican nominee will announce Friday.
But it’s unclear whether Gingrich, a more measured and experienced politician, can help rescue votes from those who are most disgruntled by Trump.
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When Gingrich ran for president in 2012, his campaign sought to promote policies that allowed more Latinos to “achieve the American dream” and permitted more Latinos to assume leadership positions.
That year, Gingrich criticized President Barack Obama's failure to pass immigration reform and promised to address immigration on a platform that included security measures, employment verification, and swift deportations of criminals. He launched a site in Spanish and wrote columns for Spanish-language newspapers. In fact, he studies and speaks Spanish, a language Trump has shunned during his campaign.
But Gingrich's 2012 immigration reform plan wasn't well-received by the immigrant community.
He proposed giving residency to undocumented immigrants who'd been in the United States for at least 25 years and had no criminal record. And most controversially, he suggested setting up citizen committees, similar to World War II-era draft boards, to decide who should become a resident, based on merit. The new legal residents wouldn't have a path to citizenship, and would have to pay for their own health insurance.
The plan aimed to legalize only the undocumented immigrants left out of President Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty that gave residency to three million immigrants, the majority of them Mexican.
During his campaign, Gingrich also proposed a federal registration system for immigrants, which he compared to a FedEx tracking system, much like Christie did during his unsuccessful presidential bid.
Gingrich’s problems with the Latino community aren’t limited solely to his position on immigration, his record also includes spewing racially charged comments against President Obama, referring to Justice Sonia Sotomayor -- a prominent figure in the Latino community -- as “racist,” and describing bilingual education as teaching “the language of living in a ghetto. Gingrich’s ambiguous stance on combating climate change -- which he defended before he opposed -- could also be an issue that would push away Hispanics, who overwhelmingly favor government action against climate change.