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Gingrich: Package Tracking Could Be Used to Locate Illegal Immigrants

The former House speaker was rallying support at Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, on Wednesday.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich rallied support from a crowd of about a hundred at Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, Wednesday afternoon, following losses in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on Tuesday.

Gingrich told the crowd FedEx and UPS track 24 million packages a day, with no additional cost to customers.

“Now over here you have the federal government, the world that doesn’t work,” Gingrich said. “And the federal government today cannot find 11 million illegal immigrants even if they’re sitting still.

“So one of my suggestions was, what if we were to mail a package to every person who’s here illegally, and then when it got delivered we would pull them up and we would know exactly where it was because it would be in UPS and FedEx.”

Earlier:

Gingrich said that, on one level, he was just making a point.

“But let me make the point in a very real way as it affects the federal government,” Gingrich said.

He said by modernizing the anti-fraud systems for Medicaid and Medicare in a similar way to American Express credit cards, the federal government would save billions of dollars.

“The current estimate for the amount we would save if you had a modern anti-fraud system in Medicaid and Medicare is between $16 and $110 billion dollars,” Gingrich said. “In a 10-year period that would be $600 billion to a trillion dollars in savings.”

He went on to explain how modernizing government applies to Springfield as well.

"...how do you modernize the government of the state of Illinois so that it’s not the most expensive pension system in the country, and it’s not killing jobs in Illinois?" Gingrich said. "This problem is true across all of our systems; it’s not just Washington. We really have to have a dramatic modernization of what we’re doing if we’re going to compete in the world."

At the rally, there appeared to be as many media professionals as supporters, with around two hundred in attendance.

Though the southern states were tough losses for his campaign, in his speech Tuesday night, Gingrich reiterated that he would campaign for delegates all the way to the Republican national convention in August.

A memo from the Gingrich campaign claimed he still had a path to the nomination, but many analysts say that is unlikely, the New York Times reported.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s supporters are calling for Republicans to unite behind him in order to square off against former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Bloomberg reported.

Gingrich was neck-and-neck with Romney in Alabama and Mississippi. In Alabama both candidates had 29 percent of the vote, behind Santorum with 35 percent. In Mississippi they tied at 31 percent behind Santorum’s 33 percent.

Still, Gingrich trails Romney and Santorum in delegates. Romney has 419, Santorum has 184 and Gingrich has 136. A total of 1,144 delegates are needed to secure the nomination.

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Milagros Gonzalez March 16, 2012 at 03:08 am
for some reason some people think hispanics are the only one requesting govt aide...white peolpe do too..when i drive through a new residential all I see are hispanics working the hard labor also lawn companies their employees are all hispanic
Louise Martinez March 16, 2012 at 03:48 am
How will you send an illegal a pkg when you claim to not know where they are??...And yes the US government seems to not care that 12 million of them are burdening our country... Yep I said burdening our country.. but you know what it's been that way since the Newt days in the Government and he did nothing about it then... also what about the march the illegals did when Bush was president...why didn't someone grab them when there were thousands of them bunched together disrupting traffic and american businesses... I read in the news that the rich republicans bused them in for the march and that their employers gave them a paid day off to march !!!
Vee Kay March 16, 2012 at 03:53 am
How to find them is one thing... Try sb1070, let the local police take in suspected illegals to be handed over to the FEDS.... BUT the important point here is he's finally starting to catch on the ILLEGALS are bankrupting us.... Cheap labor ain't so cheap when you have to pay the taxes to support the rest of their family....
Google Girl March 16, 2012 at 04:49 am
Good luck with getting your GED.
Jack Starr March 16, 2012 at 06:36 am
That's a Brilliant plan Newt Gingrich. Now if you can just give us the 11 million names and the addresses to send them to we can get started.
daniela nunes March 16, 2012 at 10:14 am
America was not made to choose who stays and who goes. Seriously, why cant everyone just let others be free and happy with what they have. Immigrants who have no criminal record aren't the ones screwing america. Criminals are screwing America. Newt Gingrich should really consider on leaving them alone. Immigrants who do nothing wrong shouldn't be kicked out of a place they like living. I don't think Newt Gingrinch would want to be kicked out of his own house and start new in a whole different country if he was living somewhere he shouldnt be. Seriously, think what is best for the people not yourself!
Halli March 16, 2012 at 01:11 pm
To make us "what we were not meant to be?" I can't tell if your comment is sarcastic or not. America IS for giving the downtrodden a chance - go look up what it says on the Statute of Liberty - and the "American dream" is to be able to rise out of poverty through hard work and be successful. "Newt and the other Republicans" don't give a cr*p about regular people, only the big businesses that fill their coffers. More of this country needs to realize that. Further, I believe you meant freedom OF religion? And in that case, it's the "conservatives" that want to inject religion into medical decisions and "moral" decisions that have NOTHING to do with the government. Democrats don't do that.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 01:25 pm
Lyn Wyn - there's not, actually, much of a voter fraud issue at all; you can look up statistics. There was some issue with registering people who did not exist, in very small numbers (I'm not sure how or why), but not actually people attempting to vote for them.
The thing is that voting is a basic right, and therefore, taking it away from someone without an affirmative showing that they do NOT deserve to vote is a violation of a basic right. If ID cards are mandated, there needs to be sufficient resources and time allocated for people who cannot afford the IDs to get them. If an ID is, say $60 (I don't know the actual cost among states, but that sounds about right), a lot of people probably couldn't afford this, especially in this economy, and ESPECIALLY if only short notice was given, and they wouldn't be able to save for a while for it. Plenty of people are working 2+ jobs and barely paying the resnt and electricity and are unable to buy nutritious food, and a "surprise" $60 fee just isn't feasible for them. I'm not ok with them being barred to vote in even one election because of this. I'm fine with photo IDs being mandated if sufficient time and resources are allocated for people who cannot afford the IDs to receive a subsidy for them and to actually obtain them by the required date.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 01:28 pm
Um did he suggest anything sensible or viable? I don't see any such suggestions.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 01:33 pm
You sound like a hardworking American, but I'm not sure exactly what you're railing against. You didn't claim that the people who can barely speak English in the college are here illegally, and if they came here legally, they all have to start somewhere in learning English; and if they were able to score well on entrance exams and in high school, why shouldn't they receive the education that they're paying for? Of course there are huge problems with illegal immigration, but nothing you're talking about seems to be related to that.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 01:46 pm
So we'd end up having them steal food instead? I'd much rather them be paying for it while we figure out how and what to do about them...
And anyway, then every single person would have to show proof of citizenship upon buying food and paying for their own medical care? It's not like the illegals walk in with a sign saying they're illegal so that they can be asked for the proof of citizenship we don't have. To ask everyone who walks in to a grocery store for ID would be downright un-American and I certainly want to live in a totalitarian country like that. Try again.
John Dumas March 16, 2012 at 01:56 pm
Of course the government is a make up work operation by passing papers around in a circle. Probably 95% of what the government does could be eliminated and 90% of whats left could be done by one computer part time. But then who would be paying into their pension system if almost all of them were let go?
Halli March 16, 2012 at 02:05 pm
Except that most companies couldn't afford that and then we'd be spending a ton of money on "debt collection" services. Sigh.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 02:06 pm
Oh good grief all you birthers are really pathetic. Can't you actually get out into the real world and start doing some GOOD for your community and the country?
Halli March 16, 2012 at 02:07 pm
I'm confused, how do you know they're illegal? And how could they get "freebies" if they can't register for government benefits because they're not legal citizens?
Halli March 16, 2012 at 02:11 pm
I'm so confused, he told you he's illegal? Or are you just assuming this, when he could be a legal citizen? But I agree that the jobs taken by actual illegal aliens are not those that citizens are exactly lining up to take (far worse than just cooking meals for long hours). That's why I support the DREAM act's idea that hardworking young people who were brought here as children should be allowed to pursue higher education and citizenship if they'll be contributing to our society. While I don't think that funds should be offered to them, I haven't actually seen anything that says funds WOULD be offered, only critics of the act claiming that this would happen.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 02:15 pm
I'm confused by your rant. If people weren't required to pay into SS, then your wife couldn't be collecting it right now.
Halli March 16, 2012 at 02:17 pm
I haven't heard any actual plausible solutions from Gingrich (and this bad joke about sending them all a package certainly wasn't one), do you have any examples?
Further, even though filling up my car hurts too, what we need to do is end the subsidies to the oil companies, which make so much money, and actually factor in the environmental costs of using gas, like they do in Europe. Yes, this would make gas more expensive, but it'll also spur the industry to make much more fuel efficient cars.
Dan Fuller March 16, 2012 at 04:07 pm
Lets be honest here. No one wants to pay $35 for a hamburger because the diner has to cover their employees with medical benefits, profit sharing, etc. So we are part of the illegal problem aren't we? Instead of arming soldiers on the border, might I suggest stopping the flow of money out of this country? If you can't send money out of our country you will be forced to spen it in our economy. Quite basic when you think about it. This includes big business. How often is your American Express representative located in Bangalore?
DunDe March 16, 2012 at 10:01 pm
yes lyn wyn you are correct. my fingees do not go at the same speed of my mind... the point is what you suspect...wake up ca how long do you think the few can support the many???????????????/
DunDe March 16, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Dear Brooklyn,
If it were not for that illegal cook working long 14 hrs days at 8.00 hr I might not be getting only 14 hrs a week at 8:40 hr and I am 50 years old. I never went to collage because I could not afford it and I am not illegal or a minority so I didn't get a free ride. I do pay taxes and have never received government aid...
DunDe March 16, 2012 at 10:26 pm
right on dj
DunDe March 16, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Dear Brooklyn, I admit that I am not the best at spelling however you suck at reading dj said construction workers wadges went down 6 bucks per hour...
John Randolph March 17, 2012 at 04:18 am
Maybe it will work for terrorists too!
David Greenberg March 17, 2012 at 05:11 am
Is Newt on drugs? If you have the addresses of the illegal aliens, then forget mailing them anything. Send a crew of ICE agents to the address, arrest and deport.
Jean Hughes March 17, 2012 at 07:44 pm
You haf to let all of the people about changs,Obama changes.We do not need a nother,Hitler, this man will bring down what we now as THE UNITED STATE OF AMERICA
Jean Hughes March 17, 2012 at 08:00 pm
Your so right make them work for there money Like we do.If they give them a amount of time,If they wont cut off the funds
Jean Hughes March 17, 2012 at 08:21 pm
THER GONE TO FAR WHEN THE WE CANT HAVE FIAG IN OUR SCOL.HOUDING
THAT YOU OWN AND THEY TEL YOU CANT FLY THE FLAG. WE NEED TO VOTE OBAMA OUT,BE FOR WERE ALL LIVING THE GOVERENT IS TEL WHEN AND HOW TO
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RIck K June 10, 2013 at 02:20 pm
I believe the aldermen are Denise Rodd south of Dempster and Dick Sayad north. Contact them.Read More Although I do not live in Rodd's ward (Im in the 8th) I am somehow on her mailing list and she keeps wanting to know what she can do for me. Here is something.
Brian Wolf June 4, 2013 at 10:16 am
http://www.journal-topics.com/news/article_9d0cbb28-cc94-11e2-9188-0019bb30f31a.html
Brian Wolf June 4, 2013 at 10:16 am
I suggest contacting the alderman to raise the profile of what these streets need.