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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

CBS: Face the Nation with Newt Gingrich

CBS NEWS:

Watch the full video here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7392054n

Schieffer: Let's talk about another big issue in the campaign. That is immigration. Mitt Romney has taken such a hard line, it seems to me, on immigration that some within the Republican Party are saying, he is simply running off Hispanic voters. Do you agree with that?

Gingrich: I'm not going on comment on Governor Romney. I will say that I do not believe that the American people are going to tolerate going after somebody who has been here 25 years, who has a family, has children and grandchildren, belongs to a local church. What I proposed is very standard things. Control the border by January 1, 2014. Make English the official language of government. Go to a much better visa program that's much... that makes it more desirable to visit the U.S. Legally. Go to a better deportation program to move people out who shouldn't be here. Have a guest worker program outsourced to American Express, Visa or MasterCard so that you know that fraud is very unlikely. And have much steeper penalties for employers who hire people illegally. In that context what I've said which I think most people think is common sense which is there is a group of people who have been here a long time. We've talked about creating a citizenry view board in the World War II selective service model.

Schieffer: Could you.

Gingrich: One last thing. If somebody has been here a long time and has an American family willing to sponsor them, they should be subject to review to get a residency permit not citizenship but a residency permit. I disagree with some of my friends. I do not believe the American people are going to send police out to round up folks who have been here 25 years.

Schieffer: That's the question I'm coming to. There are 11 million of these people. I mean, what are you going to do with them? You can't build that many prisons to put them in. You can't get that many buses to haul them back.

Gingrich: Seven or eight or nine million would go home and get a guest worker permit and come back under the law. The last two million are people who have been here a very long time. They are really part of the community. They're not citizens but they're part of the community. The folks, you and I may well know some of these folks. And 25 years ago, they did something wrong but they've been very good neighbors. They belong to the local church. As I said one of the requirements would be they have to have an American family sponsor them to be eligible for review by the Citizen Review Board. I think it's a responsible position that recognizes the humanity of the problem but firmly establishes the rule of law.

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