Gingrich Takes Closer Looks at 2 Florida Woes

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. —  House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited southern Florida on Saturday, offering encouragement for anxious Nicaraguan immigrants as well as the struggling Everglades.

During a stop in the steamy Everglades, Gingrich trumpeted the $210 million he helped push through Congress last year for Everglades land purchases. Calling it a good start, he said more funds may be needed to restore the “River of Grass.”

In the afternoon, Gingrich told Miami political leaders that he has asked Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for an extension allowing up to 40,000 Nicaraguans another year to apply to stay in the United States.

“It’s totally wrong to punish innocent people who have been doing what they are supposed to be doing,” Gingrich said.

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Gingrich started with an airboat tour of the Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge in the Everglades. He heard officials from various federal and state agencies explain the many problems faced by the vast ecosystem that stretches across much of southern Florida.

“Florida has the opportunity to become a laboratory that the entire world studies,” Gingrich said. “There are very few places where you have a complex, fragile ecosystem this close to this many people.”

The officials explained problems with the stymied water flow, pollution from phosphorus and mercury and the invasion of exotic plants. The Everglades has been severely damaged by decades of draining, development, farming and pollution.

When the Georgia Republican was told about efforts to bring in insects like the snout beetle to help control the melaleuca, Gingrich cautioned them to avoid the “Jurassic Park” effect.

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“It’s almost impossible to bring in six to eight new species without having unintended consequences,” said Gingrich, who reminded officials that he is a former environmental studies professor. “When the inevitable breakdown comes, how do you manage it?”

Nicaraguan immigrants feel they need more time to pursue their immigration cases and want the government to extend the Nicaraguan Review Program, which will expire Thursday, for another year.

The program allows Nicaraguans to request the reopening of their cases and the suspension of their deportations.

“Some of them have been here for 18 years. So it’s not a situation where we have people who showed up last Tuesday,” Gingrich said during his stop in Miami’s Little Havana.

Later, Gingrich hosted a town meeting sponsored by the National Republican Congressional Committee at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

The town meeting was an experiment to see whether similar events should be held around the country to give GOP supporters a chance to question key congressional leaders.