Newt is WRONG.
Where, exactly?
YOU are wrong!
What we cannot do is to incentivize more aliens to come here illegally. That was the “unexpected consequence” of Reagan’s amnesty deal - it convinced a lot of Mexicans that if they snuck through the border and stayed here long enough, we’d eventually give them citizenship.
1. We need to secure our borders. 2. We need to discourage legal immigration. 3. We need to rationalize our immigration laws so that legal immigration is possible for those we’d want here. 4. We need to deal with the people who are already here.
I see no great advantage in imposing draconian punishment on the current illegal residents, except that any consideration we might give them short of deportation would tend to encourage illegal immigration, making the problem worse.
Newt seems to have something in mind that he believes would avoid this. If he has, I’d love to hear it. Because I have a hard time envisioning the possibility.