Newt!, by Dick Williams: on Immigration
George Bush Sr.:
1989: Vetoed letting Tiananmen students overstay visas
Gingrich's first skirmish was over foreign policy--Bush's veto of a bill that would have allowed Chinese students to stay in the US after their visas expired. The brutal suppression of protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 had been seen across
America. Chinese students' lives were put at risk as soon as they returned home. Supported by Gingrich, Republicans joined Democrats in attempting to override the veto, and Bush administration official
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.124
Jun 1, 1995
Newt Gingrich:
Irish and Chinese immigrants overcame bigotry; so can blacks
It is fashionable for African-Americans to argue that forced immigration in the form of slavery hardly is comparable to immigration. Gingrich instead uses the lessons of history to argue that time and change heal wounds. The problems that so anger black
Americans, he insists, came to be after 1965--the year of the Voting Rights Act."From 1607 until 1965 you have certain long sweeps that are more and more positive. We go from slavery to segregation to integration. We go from empowering wealthy white
males to eliminating the poll tax and then giving women the vote, then making sure everybody can vote. We go from almost the very beginning to acquire property. Free blacks as early as the 1740s could acquire property."
Gingrich goes on to enumerate
America's past hostility toward the Irish, Southern Europeans, and the Chinese. These immigrants' ability to overcome bigotry and succeed while so many black Americans languish is the prelude to the congressman's call for dismantling the welfare system.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 30
Jun 1, 1995
Newt Gingrich:
1989: Let Tiananmen students overstay visas
Gingrich's first skirmish was over foreign policy--Bush's veto of a bill that would have allowed Chinese students to stay in the US after their visas expired. The brutal suppression of protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 had been seen across
America. Chinese students' lives were put at risk as soon as they returned home. Supported by Gingrich, Republicans joined Democrats in attempting to override the veto, and Bush administration officials began to be wary of the gadfly from Georgia.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.124
Jun 1, 1995
Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019