Former House speaker Newt Gingrich urged Republicans to make the 2014 election a referendum on President Barack Obama's immigration policies, which are "Obama's weakest issue," he told Laura Ingraham Tuesday on her radio program,
Real Clear Politics reported.
Two Democratic senators — Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Kay Hagan of North Carolina — urged the president not to use his executive powers to grant legal status to millions of immigrants against the wishes of Congress,
The Hill reported.
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Gingrich said "there's a growing panic" among Democrats that Obama's immigration policies "could be a disaster."
In June, Obama declared that if Congress would not "fix" the country's immigration system, "I can on my own, without Congress,"
The New York Times reported.
If the president moves ahead unilaterally he would be setting the stage for "a civil war in his own party" and ultimately "the final destruction of much of the modern Democratic Party," Gingrich said.
Polls show that Americans want the border to be controlled, Gingrich said. "The idea that the president would unconstitutionally, and I think clearly illegally, by stroke of the pen change the world, I think most Americans will find very unacceptable."
Gingrich added, "And look at the position that it puts all of the Democrats up for re-election in the Senate. My guess is that within days of coming back, the House Republicans will pass a bill that repudiates what the president's done, and the challenge then will be for every single Democrat up for election in the Senate: Are you going along with Harry Reid and Barack Obama and get defeated, or are you going to vote to overturn them?"
Even Democrats who think they are safe will suddenly find they are in political trouble trying to defend Obama's immigration policies, Gingrich said.
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