Newt Gingrich says illegal immigration is causing a war here at home in America. As a key player in the passage of NAFTA in 1993, Gingrich bears much of the responsibility for creating the conditions that led to that war.

Follow this link to the original source: "'Enough is Enough': While Washington Vacations, a War Rages Here at Home"

COMMENTARY:
In his article for Human Events, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich deplores the execution-style murder of three teens in New Jersey carried out by at least one illegal alien. In one area, Gingrich is right: That crime is an outrage. Because of the failure to enforce immigration laws in this country, illegal aliens have come here en masse. Some of those who have come are hardened and desperate criminals and they are preying on law-abiding Americans. It's an outrage; Gingrich is right about that.

But I have a real problem with a man who is chiefly responsible for greatly exacerbating the flow of illegal aliens from Mexico. The fact is, Gingrich's arm twisting of Republican conservatives in the House of Representatives back in 1993 to vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement is, to a large extent, responsible for the "war here at home" that he says he is "outraged" about.

(Article continues below)

Without Gingrich's help Bill Clinton would have had a difficult time getting Congress to support NAFTA. Arguably, without Gingrich's arm twisting of fellow Republicans there wouldn't be any so-called "free trade agreement" that has caused economic and political havoc both in Mexico and in our own country.

It is becoming obvious to both "liberals" and "conservatives" (listen to Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo on the presidential stump) that we wouldn't be experiencing the horrendous loss of American lives that Gingrich says he finds so "distressing" without the trade pact that he orchestrated through the House of Representatives.

This self-appointed voice for "conservative" principles is now proposing that Congress enact another law granting the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI more power via a "virtually real-time identification system to check legal status of felons...." While Gingrich's proposals to instantly check the legal or illegal identification of the detained individual caught in a felonious act may have some merit, adequate laws are already on the books. There's no need to give the federal government still more power.

Gingrich's new found populist stance on illegal immigration is as stable as a 50-year-old Minneapolis bridge. Since the creation of NAFTA by the "liberal" Bill Clinton and the "conservative" Gingrich, illegal alien traffic on our southern border has increased. Even left of center dot com sites such as CommonDreams.Org admit that NAFTA has unleashed an "immigration flood" as a result of its disastrous impact on the Mexican economy.

It may be hard for some people to accept the fact that Newt Gingrich is not their true friend. One need only look to the internationalist organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations he belongs to and the anti-US sovereignty types like Alvin Toffler, whose New World Order books he recommends, to realize that he buys his salsa from New York City.