Gingrich Proposal For Immigration A Bust?

Recently, the campaign of Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich released a ten step plan to handling immigration in the United States.  In sum, the plan addresses how to handle illegals that have entered the nation and lived beyond the law.  Those plans would vary based on the time, criminal history, and careers of those individuals.  Moreover, the plan addresses how to prevent further illegal immigration into the nation in terms of more assertiveness at the border and more options for a legitimate path to citizenship.  "If you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out," said Gingrich about in correspondence to his immigration plan.  While this plan may sound like it could work, unfortunately in response to the quote above, this plan may not apply to a large amount of people.  According to CNN, a study released this week by the Pew Hispanic Centers estimates that there are currently 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States, of which two-thirds -- or roughly 6.8 million -- have been in the country for at least 10 years.  Of that 6.8 million, about 3.5 million of them have lived in the United States without authorization for 15 years or more and around 2.8 million have been here between 10 and 14 years.  Interestingly enough, Gingrich's plan would apply to those illegal immigrants who have been here since 1986, the year President Reagan signed the amnesty law, which granted citizenship to 1.7 million people.  There are twice as many illegal immigrants today as compared to when the law was passed.  Moreover, almost half of those illegal immigrants who are undocumented are minors.  Therefore, Gingrich would have to modify his plan if he is to make more than a small difference since the people who may be granted immunity under his plan would make up a minimal percentage of the current population of illegal immigrants.