Well, that's new.
Especially considering it was Gingrich who vehemently opposed E-Verify and who was the person who made sure it was never mandatory for employers:
Subject: Illegal Immigration and Newt Gingrich – Just The Facts
Excerpt:
Gingrich’s Leadership in 1996 Helped Ensure that Illegal Aliens Could Sink Deeper Roots in the U.S.
The mainstream news media is filled with awe that Newt Gingrich showed some “compassion” for illegal aliens in Tuesday night’s GOP presidential debate. A look at his record while in Congress shows this is nothing new.
In fact, Gingrich’s leadership in Congress is one of the reasons we have so many illegal aliens today who have been able to stay in this country for 25 years.
That’s the supreme irony of Gingrich’s pro-amnesty remarks in Tuesday night’s debate. The man who helped ensure that illegal aliens from the 1980s and 1990s are still here in 2011 asked voters this week to consider the inhumanity of making illegal aliens leave this country after they have sunk such long roots here.
If, while Speaker of the House in the 1990s, Gingrich had shown any leadership in stopping illegal immigration, there would be very few illegal aliens still here from the 1980s and 1990s because they wouldn’t have been able to hold payroll jobs.
Nobody pushed him Tuesday night to take a pro-amnesty stand. He volunteered it! By focusing on long-term illegal aliens, he took a big risk that the media spotlight (or at least the internet and talk radio spotlight) would shine on his long-term record with those illegal aliens.
What the spotlight will find is that Gingrich worked with Big Business lobbyists to make sure that employers could continue to hire illegal workers, and thus sink roots that would be used by pro-amnesty politicians to justify legalizing them today.
** end excerpt **
And before the usual excuses that the author or the source is "just biased" come in, check out the entire article. Thanks.
“If, while Speaker of the House in the 1990s, Gingrich had shown any leadership in stopping illegal immigration, there would be very few illegal aliens still here from the 1980s and 1990s because they wouldn’t have been able to hold payroll jobs.”
That is “just an opinion.”
Fact: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was part of the Contract with America