Ok, I'm a damn hypocrite, I hate it when someone posts a video to lead off a topic. Oh well. This one is only a few minutes long. It's part of a speech I've seen him give in person on "the world that works and the world that doesn't."

YouTube - FedEx vs. Government Bureaucracy -- Newt Gingrich

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but I'll bite.

I... have... to... (oh god)... agree with him (*cough*). Obviously a business competing on the free market is more efficient and streamlined than a bloated government bureaucracy that has little oversight and not much motivation to find more innovative technology and offers better service to the customers. Furthermore, I don't think it's enough that we merely ship FedEx packages to illegal immigrants, they should be tagged with a tracking number before they even reach the border.

In another part of that same speech he compares how quickly German spies who landed on our shores were found out, caught, convicted and sentenced compared to the Ft. Dix Six who had been here illegally forever, stopped by the police like 43 times, and still were freely running around planning terrorist attacks.

Me either - maybe Gingrich is trying to be humourous and I don't get the joke. How would you send packages to illegal immigrants if you dont know who/where they are? And if you do know who/where they are, why would you need to send them a package.

The second point is valid, but is a statement of a problem not a proposed solution - if the USA wants to complain about illegal immigrants they should do something about it. Not a 4000 mile bandaid wall, but by dealing with the issue at home - make employing illegals a jailable offence (or perhaps deportable - though who knows where you could send them - Cuba maybe?).

Clearly it is easy to exist in the USA as an illegal immigrant. But to address the problem (if you see it as one) would entail enforcement against those who facilitate it as well as deportation of those involved.

Note: I did say IF they want to complain about it. Personally I believe they (The US Government) don't do anything about the issue because the American economy depends on those millions of people working at practically slave-labour rates.

The barrier is just one of not enough other measures being taken.

And yes, the thing about sending packages to illegals was a joke - not the most clever joke I've heard, but it illustrates how one system works so well and another one doesn't.

I watched it again to make sure I hadn't missed something and that part of the Ft. Dix Six wasn't mentioned in the clip above. I assume you're referring to those guys who were caught trying to sneak into a military base in hopes of blowing it up or procuring weapons or whatever the heck they were trying to do there, while being repeatedly stopped before finally being apprehended. But what I heard him talking about was a hotel in California that had illegal immigrants with the same social security number and it took them 43 tries to realize they were being played. Or did I miss something?

I'm not sure how easy it is to be here as an illegal immigrant. I guess that depends on what kind of living and working conditions you're willing to accept. I live in near the border, and we see a lot illegal immigrant labor here. They do the a lot of the jobs most Americans wouldn't want to do, and if they did they'd charge a heck of a lot more. We see them in agriculture, construction, domestic service, food service and basic manual labor, just to name a few. They have a rough life, no doubt, but apparently it's still better than what they have at home. It must be or they wouldn't keep coming here to do it.

The short clip I linked to is from a speech he's been giving around the country. The part about the Ft. Dix Six is in the speech but I didn't see a clip. I think I posted about it a long time ago. I'll see if I can dig it up.