Newt Gingrich: “this is, I think, actually a very simple issue. First of all, I commend the gentleman from California for listening…”

“this is, I think, actually a very simple issue. First of all, I commend the gentleman from California for listening carefully to the country and revising this. Members need to understand, any student enrolled in this school year is grandfathered until they graduate from high school. So there is not a question about kicking anybody out. There are two core questions here: The first is, prospectively for the future, should we be saying across the planet, come to America illegally and you are guaranteed the taxpayers will provide the social services at the expense of legal immigration and at the expense of children of Americans? That is what is happening. What is happening today in California is that 51,000 teachers are being used up by an unfunded Federal mandate. We are taking teachers, classrooms and computers away from legal immigrants in California and away from the children of Americans and we are transferring it to people from families that are here illegally. We lock in everybody to make sure that nobody has any question. The child in school during this school year is grandfathered until they graduate from high school. But we say for the future to the world, do not come to America illegally and expect that you are going to have the taxpayers of America, the legal immigrants and those who are American citizens, pay for social services other than emergency Federal care. This Congress began in 1995 by saying we would not pass unfunded mandates.…”