Newt Gingrich removes anti-immigrant Romney ad after scolding by Sen. Marco Rubio, others

Sen. Marco Rubio scolded Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign over a Spanish-language radio ad that accuses rival Mitt Romney of being “anti-immigrant.”

“This kind of language is more than just unfortunate. It’s inaccurate, inflammatory, and doesn’t belong in this campaign,” Rubio told The Miami Herald when asked about the ad.

“The truth is that neither of these two men is anti-immigrant,” Rubio said. “Both are pro-legal immigration and both have positive messages that play well in the Hispanic community.”

By mid-day, Gingrich’s campaign said it would pull the radio ad out of “respect for the senator’s wishes.” About the same time, former Sen. Mel Martinez and a group of Hispanic leaders aligned with Romney in issuing a letter demanding Gingrich remove the ad.

"We respect Senator Rubio tremendously and will remove the ad from the rotation," said Gingrich's Florida campaign leader, Jose Mallea.

Earlier, Gingrich defended the ad during an interview at Univision where he attacked Romney as being too hardline and too unrealistic about immigration.

"He certainly shows no concern for the humanity of the people that are here," Gingrich said.

Rubio’s sharp rebuke comes a day after he subtly corrected Gingrich for comparing Romney to former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, branded by conservatives as a turncoat who left the party before Rubio beat him in 2010.

Both Romney and Gingrich are in Miami on Wednesday for speeches about Cuba and Latin America.

The criticisms from someone of Rubio’s stature in the Republican Party comes as polls show a near-even race, albeit with Gingrich surging.

Rubio plans to stay neutral in the race. He’s a potential running mate whom both candidates would love to have on the ballot. And he’s gaining iconic status among many national Republicans who see him as a face of the future in a nation that’s growing more Latino.

Miami, Rubio’s hometown, is a key battleground. The candidates are all wooing the Cuban-exile community here, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of the Republican vote in the largest county of the nation’s largest swing state.

Already, about 54,000 early ballots have been cast in Miami Dade, where nearly three-quarters of the Republicans are Hispanic.

Rubio’s statement was fueled by the explosive, partisan debate over immigration, a key issue this election season as both parties aggressively court the Hispanic vote.

Democrats and liberals have tried to paint the Republican candidates as anti-immigrant or even anti-Hispanic for opposing legislation such as the DREAM Act, which provides a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants — mainly college students and soldiers.

Rubio, who frets that the DREAM Act gives too much “amnesty” to a broader class of immigrants, and other Republicans have accused Democrats of playing rank ethnic politics.

So when Gingrich’s radio spot described Romney as “the most anti-immigrant candidate,” Rubio and others felt he not only crossed the line — he was adopting liberal criticisms.

Earlier in the campaign, Gingrich was accused of sounding like a Democrat when he bashed Romney’s time leading Bain Capital, a private-equity firm that, at times, had profited from restructuring companies and laying people off.

Despite the condemnation from conservatives, though, Gingrich went on to surge in South Carolina, where he drubbed Romney on Saturday.

Two days before, Gingrich began running his Spanish-language ad, which begins in shocking fashion by playing an excerpt of Fidel Castro repeating his trademark line: “Patria o muerte, venceremos!” — Fatherland or death, we shall overcome.

Romney in 2007 had mistakenly associated the Castro line with a call for a free Cuba during a speech. Some in the crowd of the Cuban-exile community were aghast.

“Unlike Romney, who uses statements from Castro, Newt Gingrich has fought against the regime,” the ad says, noting that Gingrich helped pass the Cuba-trade crackdown law, Helms-Burton.

“He supported the formation of Radio and TV Marti; and is in favor of holding the Castro brothers accountable for the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue airplanes,” the ad says, referencing a 1996 incident where anti-Castro activists were killed by the Cuban military near the island’s airspace.

Ironically, the ad bears some of the handiwork of Rep. David Rivera, a Rubio friend and confidante who backs Gingrich.

Rivera this fall helped stitch together a boycott of a proposed Univision debate by the Republican presidential candidates over the way the Spanish-language network reported a story about Rubio’s brother-in-law.

Rubio bears no personal ill-will to Gingrich, who helped support him when Rubio was Florida House Speaker in 2007 and 2008. Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush are headlining a Friday Hispanic Leadership Network event where they’ve invited all the major GOP candidates. Gingrich on Monday night began airing a new, positive Spanish-language TV ad.

The candidates Republican candidates initially balked at attending a U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce forum tied to Univision, but Gingrich and Romney have decided to attend today. Gingrich was being interviewed by Univision when word of Rubio’s criticism broke. On Tuesday on the campaign trail, Gingrich addressed large, enthusiastic crowds in St. Petersburg and Sarasota, where he invoked Rubio’s name.

"As many of you know Jose Mallea is helping us with our campaign. He was Marco Rubio’s campaign manager. We discovered last night that Mitt Romney has picked up Charlie Crist’s campaign people," Gingrich said in St. Petersburg amid a smattering of boos at the mention of the former governor’s name. "That sort of tells you everything you needed to know about this contest."

Turns out, Mallea worked for Crist years ago as well. And Romney has some high-profile Rubio workers on his staff just as Gingrich does.

Later in the day, when asked about the use of his name and the linking of Romney and Crist, Rubio didn’t sound pleased about it.

"Mitt Romney is no Charlie Crist. Romney is a conservative,” Rubio said. “And he was one of the first national Republican leaders to endorse me. He came to Florida, campaigned hard for me, and made a real difference in my race.”

But on the whole, this problem goes back a lot longer than 86 and is a lot bigger than any laws passed or not.

When the history of the rise and fall of the US is written, historians will point to the 1965 Immigration Act that changed the demographics of this country forever as the single most important factor for our decline.

The 1965 Immigration Act: Anatomy of a Disaster

It is largely the impact of a supply and demand issue plus an open border.

It has to do with an inexhaustible supply of cheap labor, legal and illegal, which drives down wages. There is a reason why salaries have remained stagnant or declined since the 1970s.

The latest data show 22.1 million immigrants holding jobs in the U.S. with an estimated 8 million being illegal aliens. By increasing the supply of labor between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by an estimated $1,700 or roughly 4 percent. Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the estimated impact was even larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent. The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status.

The Bureau of Labor statistics for December 2011 show a national unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, including 15.8 percent for blacks and 11 percent for Hispanics. 22 million Americans are seeking full-time employment. Despite the economic downturn, the U.S. continues to bring in 125,000 new, legal foreign workers a month. This includes new permanent residents (Green Cards) and long-term temporary visas and others who are authorized to take a job. This makes no sense.

So, how many of you pro-Gingrich folks are going to turn against him, now that he called a hardline illegal immigrant stance "inhumane".

Romney's "anti-immigrant" comes from his hypocrisy. While he vetoed a specific in-state tuition bill, as governor he counter-proposed free college for students scoring a certain level on the high school exit exam without regard for legal status. His Rat legislature got him out of that one claiming it would advantage too may wealthy students. He employed illegals at his own home and even when caught allowed his gardener to keep the same illegals for another year until he was running for POTUS.

As an amoral vulture capitalist, he likes illegals more than real immigrants or real Americans.

The anti-Newt knotheads ignore his proposals which start with border control by a date certain and include the specific sorts of enforcement measures that AZ and others have passed.

Everyone of those critics with questionable motives focuses on the very last idea which won't even be considered before all the other steps are taken to completion and that's creating a review process for those who haven't left on their own, have registered as required, haven't been deported, have a long history and deep community ties.

Romney's trying to pander to activists like some born-again bigot. For the GOP's sake, and all our sakes, I hope he does not succeed. His tactics failed in CA in the mid-90s and turned that state permanently blue with the rise of Hispanic voters.

Now look at what you just said. You quoted an exact percentage, and then had no idea how many folks to apply it to. 12 or 20 million? My point is this: that 40% figure is dubious, very dubious. The biggest part of the problem is due to those who crossed the border illegally and the way to stop the biggest bleeding is to stop that.

There is no doubt that we really don't know how many illegal aliens are here or how they got here. We do have the government and various think tanks that use available data to estimate numbers. Both Dems and Reps have come to the 40% number. Pew and CIS have also used that estimate. Securing the border only solves part of the problem. The US-VISIT act of 1996 was supposed to set up a system to track down and deport visa overstays. It was never fully implemented.

We have over 50 million visitors to the US annually. There are over 700,000 foreign students in the US and millions of guest workers. This is a major challenge to keep tract of them.

Well the anchor baby question will have to be addressed through an interpretation of the 14th ammendment.

Or a constitutional amendment. If Congress passes a law, it will be challenged and go to the courts. If SCOTUS declares the law unconstitutional, an amendment will be the only way to change it. Ireland had birthright citizenship, the last country in Europe to have it and they changed it thru a constitutional amendment.

I have my doubts that NBC will be defined as being born of two US citizens and on US soil. There are just too many Americans who have been or are born to US military and other government personnel overseas, including my own daughter, to exclude them from being eligible for the Presidency. Personally, I think we are going to get a ruling very similar to the Tribe-Olson opinion, which makes it even more imperative that we get rid of birthright citizenship.

Since 9/11 50,000 Americans have been killed by illegal aliens and hundreds of thousands more have been injured or been the victims of crimes by them. Where is the humanity and concern for our fellow citizens who must bear the costs for their illegality? In CA, incarceration costs alone for illegal aliens is over a billion dollars annually.

National Remembrance Day for those killed by illegal aliens

On Friday, citizen advocacy groups F.I.R.E. Coalition, the Tea Party Immigration Coalition and the Foreign National Crime Information Center announced their support for National Remembrance Day for Americans who have fallen at the hands of illegal alien criminals.

The groups issued the following press release:

"The Illegal Alien Crime Reporting Act of 2011 and Remembering the American Victims of Illegal Alien Criminals"

F.I.R.E. Coalition, in partnership with the Tea Party Immigration Coalition and the Foreign National Crime Information Center, will hold a press conference in Washington, DC Thursday November 3rd to designate November 6th as the Day of Remembrance for the American victims of illegal alien criminals and to support Congressman Walter Jones' (R-NC) H.R. 3168 (The Illegal Alien Crime Reporting Act of 2011).

"November 6th is the 25th anniversary of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act(IRCA) Amnesty," said John Stahl, co-founder of the Tea Party Immigration Coalition. "One legacy of IRCA is millions of illegal aliens who continue to sneak into our country expecting another amnesty and some of them are violent criminals. It is appropriate that November 6th be the day that we observe a moment of silence, remembering the tens of thousands of unnecessary victims of illegal alien crimes. They are 'unnecessary victims,' because if the federal government did its job, secured our borders and enforced our immigration laws, we wouldn’t have illegal alien criminals victimizing innocent American citizens and legal immigrants."

Today is National Remembrance Day for Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens

More than 50,000 Americans have been killed by illegal aliens since 9/11.

Think about that.

More than 6,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since that same date. But nearly ten times that number have been killed right here at home as a consequence of the Federal government’s failure to secure our borders and protect its citizens, in direct violation of the Constitution’s Article IV Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

More than 50,000 dead as a direct result of this violation. Yet the media ignores the victims. And politicians don’t recognize the loss of tens of thousands of families.

But today We The People remember.

Today is National Remembrance Day for Americans Killed By Illegal Aliens. A coalition of groups fighting against illegal immigration, including Stand With Arizona, the FIRE Coalition, and Congressmen Steve King (R-IA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) have joined together to recognize this day in honor of the victims.

Hispanics have been voting Dem for a long time and will continue to do so in the future. Immigrants and minorities vote Dem, the party of free stuff.

Latino Voting in 2010

Immigration, Political Realignment, and the Demise of Republican Political Prospects

Why must we reward them for their crimes by legalizing their status, including the right to live and work here? These lawbreakers not only entered the country illegally, they worked illegally, they committed ID theft, tax evasion, driving illegally, etc. And this stupid idea that communities are going to decide who can stay is nonsense. Imagine how that will work in LA and SF or the many other sanctuary states, counties, and cities. Hell, one mayor in CT wants to allow illegals to vote in local elections.

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