Rep. Luis Gutierrez2013-06-20T08:35:58-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=rep-luis-gutierrezCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rep. Luis GutierrezGood old fashioned elbow grease.House Republicans: What Happened? You Were Doing So Welltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34335772013-06-13T06:59:44-04:002013-06-13T11:05:51-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
Committee Chairmen and Republican Leadership in the House significantly changed their tune for the better and were making serious bipartisan progress to fix our immigration system and heal their party this year. Judiciary Committee hearings had a civil tone for the first time in decades. Serious discussions on immigration reform were informed by credible witnesses who actually wanted to help Congress craft sensible legislation to modernize our immigration system.
Tasked by our leadership, a small group of legislators from both parties was -- and still is -- meeting several times a week to make serious progress towards a solution. The bill we are writing is designed to garner support from a critical mass in each party. That work continues, even with the departure of one of our Republican members who has made, and will make, important contributions toward passing a bill.
I know immigration is a difficult issue for Republicans because so many in their party hold hardened positions that have had tragic political consequences. And I would actually prefer to share the credit with Republicans and reach a solution than to play partisan games and reach an impasse. The Republicans with whom I work regularly -- Judge Carter, Sam Johnson, Mario Diaz-Balart, Raul Labrador -- are some of the smartest and most skillful Republican lawmakers I have ever encountered and Chairman Goodlatte, Chairman Gowdy, Chairman Ryan and others have contributed positively.
When one Republican Congressman recalled on television the "wetbacks" his family employed in the 1940s, Republicans beat Democrats to the microphones to denounce his remarks creating an impressive chorus.
The progress the Republican Party was making was real and I praised it every chance I got with advocates, Democrats, and cynical reporters who said the new tune on immigration and immigrants was not real or would never last.
But over the past week, it seems Republicans are having a relapse. The anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric are metastasizing and causing a substantial case of amnesia about the last election.
Last week, almost every House Republican voted to amend the Homeland Security Appropriations bill to deport undocumented children who grew up in the United States, registered with the government, stayed in school, and passed criminal background checks. More than a rudimentary anti-Obama vote against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, even Republicans who support the DREAM Act felt compelled to support the King Amendment and signal to Republican voters, Latino voters and everyone else that the GOP wants to deport millions of peaceful, productive immigrants who are raising families, pursuing an education, and contributing to the American economy.
What were you thinking? You should know better. I thought you were leaving behind your get-tough-on-immigrants political games and had packed them deep in a storage unit with your "Mitt for President" buttons.
Boldly following Steve King off of an electoral cliff is what got you in an immigration mess in the first place. How quickly you forget how Latino families -- made up mostly of citizens and voters -- react when you threaten to deport their college-bound children.
Now, the leaders of the House Judiciary Committee have introduced a "new" bill, the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act (H.R. 2278), and they will hold a hearing about it on Thursday. The bill actually recycles many of the malignant proposals contained in the infamous 2005 bill, HR 4437. Among other things in the Republican prescription:
Force all state and local police to double as immigration agents and force all police to either enforce federal civil law or face defunding for community safety programs -- so that Latinos and other racial and ethnic groups will think twice before calling the police, thereby harming public safety;
Double down on racial profiling legislation that anti-immigration advocacy groups have successfully passed at the state and local levels.
Not weeks after the most notorious immigrant-basher of his generation was slapped down by a federal court for a systematic racial profiling and violating the civil rights of U.S. citizens, House Republicans want to canonize Sheriff Joe Arpaio in legislation.
Do you remember what happened early in 2006 after you passed HR. 4437 in late 2005? Ask Chairman Sensenbrenner why every Hispanic in America seems to know his name. The leaders of the Catholic Church led the backlash to the Republican bill, asking priests and parishioners to engage in civil disobedience if it became law.
What followed were the largest series of peaceful demonstrations in American history when immigrants, labor unions, congregations, and allies by the millions filled America's streets. It led to an unprecedented wave of citizenship and voting among Latino and other pro-immigrant voters who were energized to fight Republican anti-immigrant policies. That November, Republicans lost the House and Senate and they have lost the White House twice since then.
When a Republican Member of Congress uses a term like "wetback," I generally write it off to the insensitivity of individuals of a certain age. But when almost every Republican votes to deport DREAMers and many other sensible Republicans propose the enforcement-only son-of-H.R 4437, I am genuinely offended.
The Republicans I work with on immigration reform are smart, religious, America-loving legislators who want to establish for this nation an immigration system of which they can be rightly proud. I know you are out there. I know you understand this issue better than your recent behavior betrays. I think you can help your party get back on the path to recovery. Your nation, our nation, needs you to step up.]]>Ten Reasons Young People Should Come Forward For Deferred Actiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17755522012-08-14T10:48:29-04:002012-08-14T14:55:20-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a form of temporary deportation relief for undocumented immigrants who meet certain criteria. Each case will be evaluated individually, but I am encouraging those who meet the basic criteria to consider applying for DACA or at least get all the information they can about whether it is the right thing for them. Thousands will join me and Senator Dick Durbin, the author of the DREAM Act, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago at the Navy Pier for a workshop on the new program conducted by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and numerous local groups.
Almost all of the young people I have talked to are eager to come forward. They fought hard for deportation relief and want to be able to work, drive, go to school, and fight on for broader, permanent immigration reform, including the DREAM Act. But for those who are hesitant, I suggest that there are at least ten reasons you should come forward if you qualify:
1) The young people who come forward for relief under the deferred action program will be taking the first steps on behalf of the estimated 10-12 million undocumented immigrants who live and work in the United States and who will someday be full members of our society.
2) Our community fought for this, protested, marched, got arrested, went to jail, and we will make it work for our DREAM-eligible youth and for the United States. We will not tolerate delays, double-speak, broken promises, opportunism, fraud or anyone taking advantage of poor or desperate people. This is a turning point in the history of immigration to this land and we will make it a bright moment in that history.
3) Hiding in the shadows left us vulnerable; coming out into the light makes us strong and protects us. By standing together, we will ensure that the young people who sign up for deferred action will be politically bulletproof. Any future President or Secretary of Homeland Security will have one hell of a fight on their hands if they try to deport this contingent of DREAM-eligible youth en masse.
4) It is inevitable that broader, fuller and permanent legalization is coming for most of the estimated 10-12 million undocumented immigrants who live and work in the United States. There is no other alternative to getting those who live here into the system, on the books, and right with the law. And the institutions of civil society, from government agencies to churches to community groups, will be ready to help manage this process come August 15. The process of moving 1 million or more young immigrants from undocumented status to protected status through deferred action will take time and dedication, but it is good practice for things to come.
5) If in the next few months the immigration status of deferred action immigrants is questioned, they will have proof that they have registered and are in the process of gaining protection from deportation. They will have tangible evidence that they have been here for a long time and want to fully participate in this country's affairs. In a few weeks or a few months from now, if someone is pulled over, witness a crime, or have the misfortune to get tangled up in the racial profiling dragnet of states and communities that have passed anti-immigrant laws, they will have proof that they are being processed for deferred action and will not be incarcerated simply for their immigration status. This is a benefit not just to the individual DREAMer and their family, but to the community at large as law enforcement can now concentrate on actual threats to community safety.
6) The DREAMers adopted the slogan and credo "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" and we honor the amazing and courageous organizing, advocacy, and civil disobedience that the DREAM Act advocates have done for years--fighting against deportation and fighting for inclusion. Some were arrested, some were deported, some are now too old to participate in this new opportunity, and some gave up hope; but all set a standard for us that says we cannot slow down or give up because there is still so much left to be done. We are done hiding our identities. DREAMers, immigrants, their friends and families are loud, proud and are not retreating behind a wall of secrecy.
7) Right now, millions of people work in America without the protection of U.S. labor law, making them and their coworkers vulnerable to exploitation. By ensuring that labor laws, wage and hour laws, and health and safety laws are followed, we improve wages and working conditions across the labor force, ensure tax compliance, and force employers to compete on an even playing field. Work authorization for DREAM-eligible youth is a step in the right direction and unlocks the potential of DREAMers to contribute more fully to their country and community.
8) Past experience with temporary deportation relief tells us that the process may not be perfect, but it is extremely beneficial to our country and the individual immigrants themselves. Each applicant will need patience, paperwork, "plata" and in some cases, some will need thorough legal advice on how or whether to sign-up for the program. But community groups, clergy, elected officials, and many others can help with the paperwork and some may be able to help with the fees. To immigrant communities, the message is clear: You are not alone and we will be with you until the end. But what you invest in this program will be paid back many times over. Just as clear is that what America invests in making this program work will come back many times over.
9) The anti-immigrant groups in Washington and elsewhere want immigrants to stay in the shadows and perish there or go away. Nothing will make them sadder than a group of fine, intelligent, well-mannered young people stepping forward to say "thank you for the protection and relief and we would like more, for ourselves, our country, our families, and our communities." Republicans in the House and Senate are threatening to sue President Obama because he is protecting DREAMers from deportation. Coming forward is a great way of ruining their day. They can't stop this. It is happening.
10) DREAMers, you grew up here. You went to school here. Your friends are here. For most of you, your family is here, your sports team, your favorite foods. You are probably more "American" than "immigrant" at this point. So let's have the paperwork catch up with reality. Let's get you on the books and protected from deportation first. A work authorization second. A driver's license third. And then let's work together to make your legal status permanent and extend immigration reform so that we reestablish immigration as a fundamental attribute of America's vitality and success.]]>New York Times: "There Is One Important Thing Mr. Obama Could Do Right Now..."tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15685042012-06-04T14:11:58-04:002012-08-04T05:12:12-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/New York Times editorial, "A Start on the Dream," eloquently makes a point I have been trying to make to the President of the United States since at least December 2010. Namely, that as Chief Executive, President Obama has extraordinary leeway under our current immigration laws to prevent the deportation of certain immigrants if it is not in our national interest to deport them. The New York Times editorial argues in particular that the President should suspend the deportation of students who qualify for the DREAM Act; young people who arrived here as children and have steered clear of crime.
Congressional Republicans are determined to block the comprehensive immigration overhaul Mr. Obama promised for his first term. They have even blocked the Dream Act, which would legalize potentially hundreds of thousands of undocumented young people who were brought here as children and demonstrate their good citizenship by going to college or serving in the military.
There is one important thing Mr. Obama could do right now to give these young people hope: He could use his executive authority to halt deportations of those who would be eligible for the Dream Act.
The powers the president has to close or favorably resolve deportation cases have been enumerated for him by a number of experts inside and outside of his government. In early 2011, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus appealed to the president to use these powers, as did a group of 22 Senate Democrats. A memo from his own staff in 2009, the opinion of legal experts -- including two former INS General Counsels -- and now an open letter signed by nearly 100 law school professors all concur that the president is firmly within the law to halt deportations for immigrants that meet certain criteria.
Indeed, the President currently uses -- and previous presidents have used -- those powers all the time. When Cubans reach the U.S., they are paroled as a matter of policy and become eligible for permanent legal status and citizenship quickly. It is in our national interest to do so, whether they are economic or political refugees. When the tragic earthquake in Haiti made returning orphans unwise, President Obama acted to suspend certain deportations because it was in our national interest to do so.
And in June of 2011, the Obama Administration announced it would exercise some of its powers of prosecutorial discretion to close or resolve deportation cases against those who meet certain criteria that made them low priorities for deportation so that our limited deportation slots could be used for felons and serious criminals.
I applauded that policy announcement in June 2011 and have spent the last year promoting its application to deportation cases that split up families with U.S. citizen dependents, military families, DREAM Act youth, and others with no criminal record and deep ties to their communities in the U.S. I have gone around the country making immigrant communities aware of this new tool to fight the deportation of people who are clearly assets to their communities in the U.S. In Chicago, I formed an informal advisory group to identify cases that should be addressed by the prosecutorial discretion policy, and Family Unity Defense Committees are forming in several other states.
But that policy, as statistics bear out a year after it was announced, has not been used as widely, as fully, and as consistently as it should be used to prevent deportations that are not in the national interest.
Now we have the editorial page of the New York Times saying to the President not only Yes We Can but Yes We Should dial back deportations, especially for immigrant youth.
Whatever personal journey the president is on with regard to deportations, I hope he is coming around to see that he holds a key that will be very helpful towards building support for him and for immigration reform in his second term. The DREAM Act is enormously popular and the immigrant youth it would spare from deportation are precisely the type of immigrants the public broadly supports and sees as assets, not liabilities. Republicans in both the House and Senate have introduced or are planning to introduce legislation to prevent the deportation of immigrant youth. And a clear political contrast would be drawn between the president and his presumptive opponent in November, Mitt Romney, who vowed to veto the DREAM Act if it ever reached his desk.
It is time to put the national interest first and halt the deportation of those whose removal hurts our country. On principle, on policy, on law, and on politics, it is time for the president and the Department of Homeland Security to fully implement its prosecutorial discretion policy as a down payment on the immigration reform I and others will enthusiastically fight for in the President's second term.]]>The Stolen Dreams Acttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13980182012-04-02T17:05:58-04:002012-06-02T05:12:01-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
Reports indicate that a proposal backed by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who opposes the DREAM Act, would allow certain young people to eventually earn legal status by attending certain four-year colleges or serving in the U.S. military. The proposal would bar these young people raised in the United States from ever becoming citizens. Similar restrictive or watered down proposals are said to be coming from Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona (both of whom have supported the DREAM Act before now opposing it). Let's call them collectively the 'Stolen Dreams' Act.
This is a very dangerous game these Republican senators are playing with the lives of young people. With zero chance of such a proposal passing the Republican-controlled House, they are hoping to play politics with the immigration issue long enough to soften the Republican Party's image with Latino and immigrant voters, which, to be blunt, stinks. It is the equivalent of a batter protecting the plate in baseball, sending off foul tips to extend his time at the plate, but without actually swinging or making a serious attempt to get on base.
And it is a foul tip indeed. Unlike his parents and practically everyone else who has emigrated from Cuba, Senator Rubio feels the current cohort of immigrants in America should never be considered fully American. Even for infants brought to America by their parents and now fully Americanized, they can never be fully considered citizens and taxpayers if Senator Rubio has his way. It represents a sea change in American history; taking citizenship off of the table for a group of people for whom America is their only home.
Why? Because Senator Rubio and other Republicans fear legal immigration. Despite all the rhetoric out of one side of their mouths that they "only oppose the illegal kind" of immigration, the main argument they speak out of the other side of their mouth against citizenship is that citizens can sponsor close family members for visas to come legally.
The big negative is -- and this is one of the things Senator Rubio has said -- it introduces chain migration. That is, you can bring family members into the line, that is, a path to legalization... Right now they could start bringing in their immediate families and then, depending on which version of the DREAM Act you look at, they could bring in their parents, you could bring in extended family members.
The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee agrees that citizenship and legal immigration are the perils of the DREAM Act. In an op-ed posted at Fox News.com, the gatekeeper to House Republicans when it comes to immigration wrote:
While DREAM Act supporters claim that it would only benefit children, they skip over the fact that it actually rewards the very illegal immigrant parents who knowingly violated our laws. Once their children become U.S. citizens, they can petition for their illegal immigrant parents and adult siblings to be legalized, who will then bring in others in an endless chain.
This is why Senator Rubio has said, "I think that one of the debates that we need to begin to have is a difference between citizenship and legalization." He told Fox News personality Juan Williams that he fears the DREAM Act would bring three or four million new people to the U.S.
The facts blow this argument out of the water. Most immigrants who become citizens sponsor one other close family member for legal immigration over their lifetimes (the average is 1.2 per immigrant), but many of the young people who could be eligible for the DREAM Act already live in families that are A) already here; and B) where some in the family are citizens or here legally and some are not. Even under rosy projections, any person legalized under the version of the DREAM Act that passed the House in 2010, for example, would not be able to get a family member a visa for at least a decade or two. Factor in the waiting times for most visas and immigration policies that bar almost all of those already living here illegally from getting legal, even if their child or sibling (or even a spouse) somehow becomes a citizen, and you see this is a bright red herring. It is a fictitious argument, but one embraced by Senator Rubio, Rep. Smith, and Lou Dobbs.
Senator Rubio is so convinced that his party is opposed to fully integrating immigrants into the fabric of America, he will not even bother to ask them to support it. He jumps right to the no-citizenship option. He knows he cannot gather support for fully including these young people in our country given the posture of most candidates and office holders. And raising the question could further expose and embarrass Republicans when the vote in November hinges on how (and how many) eligible Latinos vote.
Young people with no criminal record, who have grown up in the United States, are without papers through no fault of their own -- even the ones who embrace and pay for higher education or serve our country in the military -- being put on a lengthy journey to citizenship is toxic to the leaders of the Republican Party. The presidential candidates and all the key committee chairmen favor an approach closer to Arizona's racial profiling law. They want their approach to immigration to spark a mass exodus of more than 11 million people, even though most have lived here for more than a decade. It is ludicrous, but sadly true.
It is a tragic commentary on the GOP and how far it has leapt over the anti-immigration cliff. Sen. Rubio knows that Ronald Reagan would be drummed out of his own GOP because of his support for legal immigration and citizenship for long-time residents. Senators John McCain, Jon Kyl, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Orrin Hatch, among others, who once led GOP efforts to craft bipartisan solutions to make citizens and taxpayers out of long-time residents, are all cowering from the sign waving bullies and talk-show hosts in their own party. And let's be clear, anti-immigration policies and anti-immigrant rhetoric adopted by some leaders in Senator Rubio's party aren't just liabilities with Latino voters, they are liabilities will all voters.
You are either for maintaining America's tradition of incorporating generations of immigrant families into America through a controlled and orderly process or you are not. You are either for getting immigration under control by making legality and visas an option for immigrants or you are not. You are either for making sure we have fair laws evenly enforced so that members of our society share the same rights and responsibilities as citizens and taxpayers or you are not. And you either think the type of people who are immigrants today can and will become full partners in our shared destiny -- just as our forefathers and mothers did when people doubted them -- or you do not. There has always been a small number of Americans opposed to incorporating immigrants fully into society and they have always been wrong.]]>Latino-Bashing GOP Seeks Puerto Rican Votestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13536092012-03-16T11:59:17-04:002012-05-16T05:12:01-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
To one audience, the Republican candidates feel they must be defenders of English, tough on immigration, and be seen always taking a stand against the diversification of America. They believe this to be what the conservative base of the Republican Party and the Tea Party want. They are mostly wrong about that, I think, but that is what they believe.
On the other hand, most Latinos in the U.S. are citizens and can vote. The Republicans are facing a Puerto Rico primary in the midst of a tough delegate battle. Given Puerto Rico's colonial situation, Puerto Ricans get to vote for president in the primaries, but cannot vote for the candidates they help choose in the November election.
So, whether they like it or not, these Republican candidates need to find a way to ask a group of voters they spend most of their time insulting to forget the insults and vote for them anyway.
Governor Romney is in an absolute freefall when it comes to Latino support and his electability nationally is highly questionable because of it. He has surrounded himself with some of the fiercest opponents of legal and illegal immigration -- Pete Wilson, Kris Kobach, Jan Brewer and any Arizona sheriff he can find -- and he went out of his way to express his opposition to the nomination of a qualified Puerto Rican -- Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor -- to the United States Supreme Court, even criticizing his rival in TV commercials for having voted for her confirmation.
Senator Santorum this week proclaimed his desire to see English adopted as the official language in Puerto Rico as a prerequisite to becoming a state, but the majority of Puerto Ricans do not speak English well. It was a misstep that reveals how out of touch he is with Puerto Rico, but Sen. Santorum has never been a friend to Latinos. His unsuccessful run for Senate reelection in Pennsylvania in 2006 was one of the lengthiest and ugliest sustained anti-immigrant rants the nation has ever seen in a year when Republicans bet the farm on immigration as an issue and lost control of both the House and Senate. He still wants to appeal to that part of the Republican base -- real or imagined -- that wants a candidate who is tough on these Latinos who somehow have "forced" banks and credit card companies to provide services in Spanish, requiring some in this country to have to "press 1 for English."
Both GOP candidates embrace policies designed to drive Latinos out of states like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina by legalizing the use of appearance as a criteria for stopping or detaining someone to inquire into their immigration status. Ask a Puerto Rican in Arizona or the Deep South if some of the scrutiny has rubbed off on them, despite nearly 100 years of birthright citizenship. Just yesterday, the Southern Mississippi band led chants of "Where's your green card" when outstanding Kansas State point guard Ángel Rodríguez -- a Puerto Rican -- was at the free throw line in an NCAA tournament game. The racism and divisiveness generated by the nation's heated immigration debate spills over to Puerto Ricans, let me assure you. Both candidates embrace hard line anti-immigrant measures and yet covet the delegates at stake in Puerto Rico and more importantly, covet Puerto Rican support in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, New York, New Jersey and a dozen other states.
They do have an important ally in the Republican Tea Party Governor of Puerto Rico who has unsuccessfully test marketed Republican campaign themes in Puerto Rico long before Wisconsin's Governor did. The regime in Puerto Rico has conducted mass firings of public employees, made higher education less accessible to young people, and chooses big construction and development interests over the environment at every opportunity. In Puerto Rico, the government-controlled police force has been investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and found to abuse the civil rights of Puerto Ricans. Under the Republican governor, extra-constitutional repression of students, labor unions, environmentalists, immigrants, the LGBT community, journalists and political opponents has been the norm. Yet this Puerto Rican governor will be a mainstay spokesman against President Obama for whichever of these Republican candidates wins the nomination.
Puerto Rico has a lot of special challenges, including the economy, high rates of hate crimes and other violent crime, and high unemployment, but the Island of my wife's and my parents' birth remains a nation with its own language and culture. Puerto Rico has a clearly defined identity and makes a unique cultural contribution to the world and always will. None of that matters to the GOP candidates, however. The value of the Puerto Rico primary is in the posture they can adopt -- the image they can soften -- with Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in the 50 states.
This lack of respect to the people of Puerto Rico has been shown by the cavalier attitude with which these Republican contenders have approached the very serious and complex issue of Puerto Rican self-determination and reduced what needs to be a consensus-driven process conducted by the Puerto Rican people to pandering, both to the few local Republican primary voters, as well as primary voters in the U.S.
But even the pretense will end with the closing of the polls in Puerto Rico. Then, it's back to immigrant-bashing and fear-mongering. And these Republican candidates will learn that a few days of empty promises in Puerto Rico won't fool Latinos anywhere. ]]>Are President Obama's Deportation Changes Real?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13385512012-03-12T07:22:18-04:002012-05-12T05:12:01-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
For me, Gabino Sanchez is a test of whether changes in deportation policies announced by President Obama last year are actually prioritizing serious criminals for removal and not deporting working parents, DREAM Act-eligible youth, and those with deep community ties. The case against Gabino Sanchez should be administratively closed if the new Obama guidelines are being followed.
His story is typical. He entered the country 13 years ago as a teenager without a visa in order to support his family in Mexico facing several serious medical problems. He worked and eventually married and settled down in Ridgeland, South Carolina. His two young children are American citizens who have never lived anywhere else.
He is being deported because Ridgeland is a community where driving a car and being Mexican is enough to get you pulled over repeatedly and charged with multiple misdemeanors for driving without a license. The local police set up check points or park outside apartment buildings and mobile home communities where Latinos live so they can pull over immigrants and then slap them with a charge of driving without a license. This is a systematic way of manufacturing a criminal history for immigrants who are working or driving their children to school. This makes them easier to deport and it is happening across the country, especially in the South and in states that are implementing restrictive new immigrant-targeted laws to criminalize undocumented immigrants and get them deported by the federal government.
Gabino Sanchez cannot get a driver's license, cannot get legal immigration papers, and must drive to support his family. His misdemeanor criminal history, if you can call it that, is a product of his undocumented status combined with a heavy dose of good old-fashioned racial profiling for DWB (Driving While Brown).
When President Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced last year that it would prioritize the deportations of immigrants who have committed serious crimes like rape and murder and apply prosecutorial discretion for immigrants with deep ties to the United States and no criminal history, I thought it would help immigrants like Gabino Sanchez. With jails and detention centers filled with non-criminals, overloaded court dockets, and record-setting deportations, the new policy was necessary to relieve a maxed-out deportation system. We improve public safety by deporting serious criminals and in order to do so, we must prioritize who we are deporting.
But the U.S. is still deporting immigrants like Gabino Sanchez by lumping them in with actual criminals, murderers and drug dealers who are a threat to our communities and our nation. Despite the fact that I and others have been told that DHS would not hold minor traffic violations against immigrants being considered for discretion. DHS, I was told, does not want to be a conduit for people who have been targeted by local police because of racial profiling.
Somewhere between the announcement and the implementation of President Obama's deportation policy, something has failed. Last Thursday, the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Congress that his agency had reviewed more than 142,000 pending deportation cases and had closed or dismissed proceedings against only about 1,500 individuals (with another 10,000 still being considered). Previous analysis showed that, of the more than 1 million people deported by the President, half were non-criminals. So the figure announced by ICE -- 1,500, or about 1 percent -- is incredibly low. And disappointing.
In an election year, there is of course a political dimension to all of this. The President must garner a significant portion of the Latino vote and hope for excellent turnout in order to be reelected. While Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans are finding new and ever more effective ways to turn off Latino voters, this may not be enough in a close election where all roads to Washington go through Latino neighborhoods. Romney, for example, supports the ludicrous fantasy that 11 million or so immigrants should leave the country permanently, even those like Gabino Sanchez (and two-thirds of the other undocumented immigrants) who have lived here for a decade or more. The political cost with Latino voters was underscored again in a Fox News Latino poll that shows likely Latino voters in November overwhelmingly -- more than 80 percent -- support measures like the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
But massive increases in deportation -- and a policy to give relief to parents and young people with deep roots here that is apparently not making a significant impact -- undercuts the President, not to mention the damage to families, individuals, and public safety.
That's why I am going with Gabino Sanchez to his hearing on Tuesday in North Carolina. I want to see what is happening firsthand and why there is this disconnect between policy and practice. That is also why I am meeting with my newly formed Family Unity Advisory Group in Chicago on Wednesday. Convening this group of clergy, community leaders, advocates and immigrants will help me ensure the President's guidelines are being applied to eligible immigrants in Illinois. We will not only be identifying cases that deserve prosecutorial discretion, but helping the community arm itself with information and strategies to prevent the deportation of individuals and the needless destruction of families.
I believe the President when he says he wants drug dealers and gang-bangers out of immigrant communities and I support him in that goal.
But Gabino Sanchez is not a criminal. He is a man supporting his family and raising his children in the country he has lived in since he was an adolescent. We should be working to find ways to allow him to do that legally, not finding ways to deport him and destroy his family. If the federal government's deportation policies have meaning and if our opposition to racial profiling has credibility, the case against Gabino Sanchez should be closed.]]>In the Debate on Immigration, Deportation Must Be Sensibletag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12775482012-02-15T08:03:15-05:002012-04-16T05:12:01-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/"President Is Ignoring Immigration Laws," Feb. 6), argues that a policy of deporting serious criminals instead of parents, military families and students attending college is bad for the country. Once again the Republicans are on the wrong side of the law-and-order approach to immigration.
Like so many Republican accusations about this president, the ones surrounding immigration come straight out of a fantasy world. I wish we had the president that Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) says we have. If we did, I could have saved two trips to Park Police headquarters for being arrested in front of the White House protesting the president's deportation policies.
I praise the president when he does well, and I criticize him when he's wrong. But the fact is that President Barack Obama has deported more people, put more personnel on the ground at the border and reduced illegal entry more than any previous president. He is proud of it and trumpets it frequently. But through the Republican political lens, he appears to be a president who is soft on illegal immigration.
The question is not how many people to deport. Unfortunately, given the complete obstructionism of the Republican side to craft a more sensible alternative, we are stuck with a system that forcibly removes about 400,000 people per year, with huge costs to taxpayers, families and communities. A population about the size of Minneapolis is deported every year, and we have reached our capacity to deport more.
For this president, the question has not been how many to deport but who to deport first. Republicans say we should deport anyone we find, even if that means reducing the number of criminals we deport and reducing the capacity of both local law enforcement and our criminal courts to go after actual violent criminals -- regardless of whether they are immigrants. A sophomore in college or a handyman with two U.S. citizen children are simply not threats to public safety. But Republicans want them prioritized equally with someone who has murdered, driven while drunk or trafficked drugs. That is plain crazy, but that is the Republican approach to immigration.
When this Congress is over and the president is re-elected, I fully expect a debate on how we re-establish law and order in our immigration system, and I fully expect the leading Republicans on the immigration issue to fight every attempt at reform tooth and nail. Too many on that side of the aisle are addicted to scapegoating and denigrating immigrants -- and Democrats -- to have it any other way.
But the rest of us want a legal immigration system that works and a way for those who have been here for years and built lives here -- the vast majority of those who are here illegally in the absence of a functioning legal immigration system -- to get in the system and on the books so that immigration enforcement has teeth and employers play by the rules.
We will have that debate eventually, over the strenuous objections of Republicans who oppose a sensible law-and-order approach to immigration reform.
A version of this post originally appeared in Roll Call.]]>Immigration, Deportation and States' Rights: What Martha Taught Metag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.11842152012-01-04T15:25:12-05:002012-03-05T05:12:02-05:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
That was on a Monday. Her son, a U.S. citizen, was turned over to the Department of Human Resources and, hours later, was reunited with his father, also a U.S. citizen. But Martha, the mother and wife of U.S. citizens, is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in the U.S. since she was brought here at age 12. She was kept in jail and away from her family until Thursday.
This is partly due to Alabama's new "papers please" immigration law that requires local law enforcement to hold those suspected of illegal immigration, but it could have happened in almost any town in the U.S. that routinely calls immigration authorities when they suspect someone is here illegally. The local police would probably have let Martha go after paying her fine because she has no criminal record whatsoever, but when contacted, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency, asked the local police to hold her until they could check her out.
Local clergy and advocates alerted me because Martha's case is precisely the type of case that President Obama's policy of exercising "prosecutorial discretion" under existing immigration law is designed to clear up. Those with no criminal record, deep ties to the community through family or their length of time in the community, are supposed to be the lowest priority under our record-setting deportation program that is designed to target serious criminals for identification and removal. I fought hard, side by side with advocates and clergy across the country, to push the Obama Administration to adopt a policy to not deport low priorities so that our limited resources are used on high value criminal immigrants.
Now, with states like Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and others passing laws to put more of their immigrant residents into deportation proceedings, this policy at the federal level to prioritize real criminals ahead of parents, students and working men and women, is all the more important.
So how did the policy work in this case? I happened to have participated in a meeting that Thursday between the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. We were scheduled to get an update on the deportation prioritization plan and other immigration issues, but I used the opportunity to ask the Secretary why Martha was still detained after three nights in jail.
Eventually, later that day, in fact, ICE officers came to pick Martha up, ran the appropriate background check on her and then placed her in deportation proceedings with a date to report to ICE authorities one month later. She was released without bail late Thursday, having been in jail since Monday.
But why place her in deportation proceedings at all? She is an asset to her community and certainly an asset to her husband and infant child -- both U.S. citizens. Deporting her with or without her family makes no sense and is not in our national interest. And, given that we have reached our maximum system capacity for annual deportations at about 400,000 people a year, using one of our deportation slots on Martha and not a serious criminal makes no sense, either.
Late the next day, Friday, I received a call from an ICE official in Washington telling me that the deportation case against Martha had been dropped. No court date, no reporting to ICE for a supervisory visit in a month, just cancelation of the deportation case.
If you ask me, that is how our deportation policy should work. Although it took the better part of a week -- and a conversation between the Secretary of Homeland Security and a persistent member of Congress -- in the end, mother, child, and husband were back about their peaceful, productive lives as they should have been.
If you ask Republicans, however, a great injustice had occurred because a deportable immigrant was not deported. They have been badgering Homeland Security and ICE over the President's policy for months. Republican Senators and Representatives have pushed the "HALT" Act (H.R. 2487/S. 1380), legislation to take all discretion away from the President and his administration until a new President is elected. And they have threatened a contempt of Congress hearing against the Secretary for not turning over the name of every immigrant like Martha who was passed over for deportation in order to deport bigger fish and serious threats.
Note that Republicans have not used their time to explore ways in which: A) Martha (or immigrants like her) could come here legally in the first place; B) immigrants in Martha's situation could earn legal status; or C) how Martha could apply for legal status by virtue of her husband's citizenship without incurring a mandatory exile from the U.S. of 10 years. Doing any or all of those things would help solve the problem, not stir up political controversy over illegal immigration to weaken the President, which is, first and foremost, the goal of most House Republicans.
I am proud to live in a country where the rule of law and federal immigration preeminence enshrined in the constitution are tools to undo what legislatures in Alabama, South Carolina, and elsewhere have tried to do when politicizing and polarizing the immigration issue. When the Supreme Court takes up the Arizona "papers please" law, SB 1070, the conflict between federal priorities to remove serious criminals and state policies to deport as many people as they can catch will be a central issue. And clearly the constitution says that federal policy should prevail. A federal judge enjoined the implementation of most of South Carolina's "papers please" law, scheduled to take effect January 1, precisely on this basis.
I am also proud of President Obama, Secretary Napolitano, and ICE Director Morton for rolling out and defending the deportation prioritization policy. Despite subpoenas, legislation and flamboyantly fact-free rhetoric from Republicans, the president is right to make this adjustment to our deportation policy until such time as we have immigration laws that are in our national interest and are, in fact, enforceable.
Of course, I think the new policy should be applied more aggressively and uniformly so that immigrant mothers like Martha don't needlessly spend three nights in jail so that fewer immigrants' lives are disrupted.
I also think there are a number of other things the president and his administration can and should do under current law, including making it possible for spouses like Martha to apply for legal status through her U.S. citizen husband without facing a 10 year mandatory exile in another country. The policy that eventually reunited Martha with her family in this case should not require several days in jail or the attention of a U.S. Congressman or a Cabinet Secretary to be followed, either. And, based on formal research and an informal tally of calls coming to my office, it is by no means clear that everyone in circumstances similar to Martha's is receiving the appropriate oversight and discretion of immigration authorities.
But I learned a lot from Martha's case -- and from the cases of Gabino and his two U.S. citizen kids in South Carolina, Janina and her citizen husband and son in Chicago, Serge and his citizen wife and kids in West Virginia and countless others -- and that is that the government works if you make it work.
Every day you have to be an activist to ensure that the government is being fair and equitable with people. Schools, bus terminals and lunch counters in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina did not desegregate themselves. Wars do not end until people take action to end them. Wall Streeters will not put national interest over personal gain on their own. And while the arc of the moral universe is long and it does indeed bend towards justice, as Dr. King taught us, most times, people of conscience have to expend considerable energy to assist in the bending.]]>Colombia FTA: Blood Won't Easily Be Washed Awaytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10052582011-10-11T12:41:13-04:002011-12-11T05:12:01-05:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
This summer the world has been rocked by protests. All across the Arab world, from Tunis to Damascus, oppressed people have demanded that their voices be heard. They have stood up for basic freedoms and made demands that they live under a government that respects their rights and liberties.
And closer to home, Americans have protested too. In Chicago this week, protesters marched down LaSalle Street demanding change and reform that respects the needs of people out of work, people losing their homes, retirees losing their savings, college students who can't afford their tuition and loans. Similar protests in New York continue.
All across America, from Wisconsin to Ohio to Puerto Rico, labor union members and the friends and families who support them, have marched against wholesale elimination of union jobs and unilateral dismantling of longstanding protections for working people.
People are angry and demanding action. And often in the House of Representatives, we respond to these protests with applause and congratulations and support, but what about our votes? We stand up and cheer pro-democracy protesters in the Middle East. In the House, my Democratic friends applaud pro-union protests in Wisconsin and the Occupy Wall Street actions and my Republican friends applaud tea party protests. We are quick to act as if we are on the side of popular movements.
I would like to suggest that we can show whether we really stand with people who are demanding change, and fairness, and justice.
Because for all of the rhetoric about supporting working people, this week we will cast an actual vote that goes right to the heart of whether or not we support working men and women. In fact, we will cast a vote about whether we will protect the very lives of working men and women.
I'm voting no on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement and I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Everyone in the House who has ever celebrated, applauded or supported a popular, pro-democracy movement in the U.S. or abroad should think long and hard before they vote yes.
I believe the facts are simple. Voting for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement is a vote for violent union-busting, for driving people from their land, and setting the American working man and woman up to compete on an uneven playing field that will cost jobs and livelihoods.
Nowhere in the world is it more dangerous to be a union organizer fighting for the wages and rights of working people than in Colombia. Twenty-three trade unionists killed this year, 51 last year, and over the past several years, hundreds more threatened, driven out by violence, or simply disappeared. In 2010, more trade unionists were murdered in Colombia than in the rest of the world combined.
In Colombia, there is an organized, intensive campaign to prevent working men and women from joining together to fight for better wages and working conditions and it seems to be working. So why would the United States want to endorse this behavior and reward the companies, working with the government, who have unleashed this violent assault on workers' rights?
Senator Barack Obama understood this when he said,
"The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions... We have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights."
There is no evidence that anything has changed significantly since he said those words in October 2008. If anything, things are worse.
The facts are simple: in Colombia, trade union activists are targeted for assassination. That's not an easy fact to accept, but it's a fact. Approving the free trade pact with Colombia says that the United States can live with this fact. It brings the blood of union activist victims from Bogota to Washington. That blood won't easily be washed away.
A vote for the Colombia free trade agreement is not just a vote about economic policy or imports and exports - it's a vote about whether we will ever learn from our mistakes and negotiate tough and real trade agreements that protect American workers, foreign workers, our environment, and our future.
We were promised that NAFTA would solve US-Mexico trade issues in the 1990s. Instead we have experienced almost two decades of buyer's remorse. We have seen the upheaval in Mexico as U.S. food commodities from subsidized corporate farms flooded rural markets and drove people to Mexican and U.S. cities. Factories left the U.S., environmental and food safety standards dropped, and then, eventually, the same corporations that lobbied for NAFTA took their jobs and manufacturing to Asia and even lower rungs on the working man's race to the bottom.
We keep repeating the same fundamental mistake. Free trade agreements conceived by, written by, and lobbied for by the corporations that benefit from them don't just undermine working people in both countries by accident. This all fits a series of calculations about how to engineer lower wages, fewer environmental rules, speedier off-shoring, and higher profits until another developing country comes along offering even more for less.
We keep racing to the bottom even though the bottom keeps getting deeper.
Every Member of Congress who has ever said he or she stands with American working people and the working people of our allies and neighbors faces a stark choice on Colombia FTA. It's time for us to make a vote that matches our rhetoric. You cannot stand with union members in Wisconsin or get cozy with the Occupy Wall Street protestors or applaud Tea Party rallies and then vote for the Colombia FTA. You cannot have it both ways.
Some might think that nobody cares about this trade agreement. That nobody is paying attention. But people who've risked their lives are paying attention. Union members who face intimidation and assassination; workers without labor rights; small farmers forced off their land; American workers pushed out of work - they are all paying attention. Let's actually stand with people for fairness and justice. Vote no on Colombia FTA.
]]>Why I Got Arrested for Protesting Obama's Deportation Policytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9161302011-08-02T11:56:53-04:002011-10-02T05:12:02-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/The Guardian's Comment Is Free America with the headline "President Obama's lost pledge to Latinos," on August 1, 2011.]
On Tuesday, July 26, 2011, I was arrested in front of the White House, along with a dozen other pro-immigrant advocates and clergy. We sat down on the sidewalk in front of the White House with a banner that read "One Million Deported Under President Obama" and refused to move when the police ordered us to. One by one, those sitting in front of the banner were led away with hands cuffed to a police van and taken into custody. I was released with the others a short time later, after paying a fine and being processed, but it is not every day or every month that a US congressman is arrested for protesting outside the White House, especially one from the president's own party, state, and city.
To understand why I chose to participate with others in an act of peaceful civil disobedience over President Obama's record-setting pace of immigrant deportations, you need to go back to July 12, 2008. In San Diego, then Senator -- and Democratic candidate for president -- Barack Obama spoke to the annual national conference of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Latino civil rights organisation. He told the mostly Latino audience:
When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn't working and we need to change it.
He received thunderous applause and went on to promise to address immigration reform to protect immigrants from deportation in his first year in office, and pledged he would not walk away even if it was politically difficult to keep moving forward. He won the election with an overwhelming and unprecedented 67% of the Latino vote -- which had expanded by 2 million new voters since 2004 -- and won key states like Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada (and, therefore, the White House) on the strength of the Latino vote. Indeed, the slogan adopted by his campaign, "Yes We Can", is an adaptation of the iconic chant of the Mexican American farm labor movement of the 1960s, "Si Se Puede," led by César Chávez.
Flash forward to now and Barack Obama's record on immigration as president does not match the rhetoric or the huge expectations he created in 2008. A million people have been deported by President Obama -- approximately, 1,100 per day; most of them Latinos -- far more than his predecessor George W. Bush or any American president. Without being prodded by Congress, he expanded the use of the military at the border with Mexico, mandated the use of an electronic employment eligibility system for all firms doing business with the government and, most controversially, expanded a programme misnamed "secure communities" that enlists state and local law enforcement in federal immigration matters. Such programmes erode trust between immigrants and their local police because reporting a crime or domestic abuse could lead to deportation (which has, indeed, happened). When the governors of New York, Massachusetts and Obama's own State of Illinois -- solidly Democratic Obama territory -- tried to withdraw from the program, the president told them participation by their states, counties and cities is mandatory.
Fully 62% of Latinos in America say they know someone who has been deported or could be deported under current law, according to polls. And when 1 million people are deported, those around them tend to notice and tend to demand change, which is happening in Latino and immigrant communities across the country.
The president argues that he is sworn to enforce the current law and it is up to Congress to change the law and up to activists to build the movement that will get Republicans to join Democrats to pass legislation. While true, this ignores the fact that the president has extraordinary powers under current law to temporarily spare families and individuals with deep roots in the U.S. from deportation, while targeting resources at deporting criminals, security threats and other menaces.
So, the next day, I participated in a demonstration in front of the White House to mark 1m deportations and echo the message to the president that "Yes You Can" do something to prevent the needless deportations that are breaking up families. This followed a letter, released to reporters by the White House, from four members of Congress, including myself and John Lewis from Atlanta, who was an original "Freedom Rider" who helped desegregate the south in the 1960s. The president responded in a letter, also released by the White House, that he would not change his deportation policies, and then reinforced that message with his NCLR speech last Monday.
I and others who feel the current escalation of deportations is unacceptable were left with no choice but to escalate our objection to the president's actions (and inactions) with civil disobedience. I am a strong supporter of President Obama and was the first national Hispanic elected official to endorse him, and I want him to be reelected in 2012. But the deportation policies Senator Obama described as "terrorizing communities" have not changed significantly, and I cannot sit quietly and wait for President Obama to act while communities are still under siege. President Obama must utilize the powers he has under the law -- and I will keep reminding him until he does.
]]>Mr. President: Yes You Can Stop Deporting DREAMerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8759452011-06-13T11:31:07-04:002011-08-13T05:12:01-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/a press conference today with Presente.org and several Puerto Rican leaders that coincides with the president's trip to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. The press conference will include Esmeralda, who has lived in Puerto Rico since she was nine years old and who graduated with honors from high school, but who is also an undocumented immigrant who could be deported. We are sending a clear message to President Obama that it is time to stop deporting these young people who were raised in the U.S. and are American in every way except for the paperwork. The people who would have been eligible for eventual legal status and citizenship through the DREAM Act had it been signed into law last year -- including superstars like Esmeralda -- are still being removed from the U.S., which is not in the national interest nor the explicitly stated goals of the president. The president knows he has the power to stop the deportation of DREAMers; the question is whether he has the courage to do so. From a political standpoint, halting the deportation of DREAMers would do much more to show the Latino community the president is still on our side than just posing for pictures in San Juan.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been clear that deporting young people who have lived in the U.S. for years and were brought here through no fault of their own as children should not be the targets of deportation. Led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL), this spring 22 U.S. Senators asked the president to use the discretionary powers he has under current law to set DREAM-eligible young people aside and protect them from deportation.
Even the president himself has made the rhetorical case to suspend deportations for this specific group of people. In his most recent State of the Union Address in January, he said:
Today, there are hundreds of thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American citizens. Some are the children of undocumented workers, who had nothing to do with the actions of their parents. They grew up as Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet live every day with the threat of deportation. Others come here from abroad to study in our colleges and universities. But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us. It makes no sense.
It makes no sense for young immigrants raised in the U.S. to live under the threat of deportation and there is one person who can do something about it: President Barack Obama.
When the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with the president last month, we reiterated our call for a halt to the deportations of these young people. The president appears to agree. He concedes that he has this power under existing law and legal scholars concur. The question is whether President Obama has the conviction and desire to fight for these young immigrants by stopping their deportations.
We know in some cases, deportations have been deferred, but usually after a public campaign, a petition drive, a viral social media clamor or significant media coverage, much of which is being driven by students and young people -- immigrants and their committed U.S.-born allies.
But it should not have to come to that. Several times a month, I hear from DREAMers who were picked up or received notices of deportation. Some have even been deported. Should I line up each week with my congressional colleagues to have each individual case reviewed by the president? His staff? Will Secretary Napolitano hold office hours?
Except for some House Republicans and a small but vocal minority of anti-immigration activists, everyone thinks deporting such long-term residents is silly, self-defeating, and un-American. We should have a clear process to protect young people who were raised in this country. When the majority of the House and Senate vote to go further and actually legalize the status of these all-but-Americans, the political space is open for you, Mr. President, to do what is right and just.
We should allow DREAMers to declare that they are not criminals, that they want to be here, want to fully participate in their society and get on the books. We should make college, work and military service available to them. At the very least, they should know that there is a policy -- a set of guidelines and procedures -- that will be followed if they are detained or get word from authorities that they must leave. They need to know that deportation is dead in the water until at least the Congress acts or a different president makes a different decision regarding who are priorities for deportation and who are not.
In my experience, young people fighting for the passage of the DREAM Act and to prevent the deportation of those who are eligible are among the most committed and fearless advocates for change in this country. They are winning legislation at the state level to grant in-state tuition to all state residents and that legislation is holding up in court. You want them fighting on your side, Mr. President. Meet with DREAM Act students as I have. Listen to what they are facing, Mr. President. If House Republicans decide -- in their infinite wisdom and boundless sense of decency -- that they want to fight you and insist that America deport some of its brightest future leaders, you would have no better allies in that fight than the young people whose futures are directly at stake, not to mention the communities from coast to coast who love them and support them.
I know that DREAMers, like most immigrants, want you fighting for them and to know your commitment to their legal status in this country goes beyond speeches and a call for legislation. Your action -- or lack thereof -- to prevent their deportation will speak volumes, not just to them but to millions of your supporters who want them to stay.]]>On the Puerto Rican People: 'You Will Not Silence Them and You Will Not Silence Me'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8303072011-03-02T12:32:55-05:002011-05-25T18:35:25-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/The following is adapted from a speech by Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, delivered this morning to the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
Two weeks ago I spoke about a serious problem in Puerto Rico. The problem is a systemic effort by the ruling party to deny the right of the people to speak freely, to criticize their government openly, and to make their voices heard.
I talked about student protests that had been met with violent resistance by Puerto Rican police. I talked about closed meetings of the legislature, and about efforts to silence the local Bar Association.
I was not the first to speak about it. And I could have said much more.
I could have gone into greater detail about how a federal judge -- whose picture I displayed on the floor -- jailed the head of the Puerto Rico Bar Association rather than let him disseminate information to the members of his organization.
A judge with a history of close ties to the ruling party and with a clear history opposing the Bar Association and who was described by my good friend Charlie Rangel -- after the judge handed out harsh sentencing to protesters of the bombing of Vieques -- as "reminiscent of the judges we had in the U.S. in the South in the civil-rights movement who wanted to punish a community to stifle freedom of speech."
I could have detailed the complaints of students, legislators, the press, and the general public who were beaten and pepper sprayed by police who clearly went too far in suppressing the people's legitimate right to demonstrate. Female students who were treated with gross disrespect by the police and whose stories were captured in the searing report by the ACLU of Puerto Rico, "Human Rights Crisis in Puerto Rico: First Amendment Under Siege."
This was the government overreaction to demonstrations at the university over budget cuts and the layoffs of at least 17,000 and maybe as many as 34,000 public employees. And demonstrations at the Capitol over budget cuts and layoffs were also met by riot police, clubs, and more pepper spray.
The images of police tactics and behavior explain why, according to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, there is an ongoing investigation -- as we speak -- into allegations that members of the Puerto Rico Police have used "excessive force, had conducted unconstitutional searches, and acted discriminatorily."
This week the Puerto Rico legislature debated a resolution of censure -- yes, censure -- condemning me for speaking out against these abuses.
A leading member of the ruling party even said, essentially, "Gutierrez was not born in Puerto Rico. His kids weren't born in Puerto Rico. Gutierrez doesn't plan on being buried in Puerto Rico... So Gutierrez doesn't have the right to speak about Puerto Rico... "
Let me tell you something -- if you see injustice anywhere, it is not only your right but your duty to speak out about it.
We don't speak out against injustice or apartheid or human rights abuses or the denial of rights to women in places around the world because we ourselves were born there. That's silly. Where we see injustice we speak out because it is the right thing to do.
Ironically, by questioning my right to speak out on behalf of free speech, they have made my point crystal clear. By challenging my free speech, they have amplified the words of my five-minute speech more than if I had spoken for five hours.
And it is their right. My critics have the right of free speech even as they deny that same right to others.
And I want them to understand this: Your efforts to silence me -- just like your efforts to silence so many people in Puerto Rico who disagree with you -- will fail, just as every effort to blockade progress only makes the march toward justice more powerful and swift.
I may not be Puerto Rican enough for some people, but I know this: Nowhere on earth will you find a people harder to silence than Puerto Ricans. You won't locate my love for Puerto Rico on my birth certificate or a driver's license, my children's birth certificate or any other piece of paper.
My love for Puerto Rico is right here -- in my heart -- a heart that beats with our history and our language and our heroes. A place where -- when I moved there as a teenager -- people talked and argued and debated because we care deeply about our island and our future.
That's still true today -- and that freedom is still beating in the hearts of university students, and workers who've been fired and members of the Puerto Rico Bar Association and every person who believes in free speech. You will not silence them, and you will not silence me.
Abraham Lincoln, a leader who valued freedom above all else, said: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."
It's good advice, and I hope Puerto Rican leaders take it.
]]>Make This a DREAM Act Christmastag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7981742010-12-17T10:21:55-05:002011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
And yet when this legislative olive branch was voted on in the House, only eight Republicans grasped for it. Eight Republicans joined 208 Democrats in approving the measure and moving it towards the Senate. When given the choice between naughty and nice this Christmas, all but eight Republicans -- and 38 Democrats -- chose to be on the naughty list.
Now the Republicans in the Senate face a similar choice. They and a few wavering Democrats have a chance to pick which side of this issue and which side of history they want to defend and with whom they want to stand.
I clearly want them to stand on the side of the U.S. military, university presidents, educators, law enforcement and the Congressional Budget Office. I want Senators to stand on my side along with every major editorial page and the 60-plus percent of the American people who support the DREAM Act in every poll I have read. Most importantly, I want Republicans in the Senate -- and Democrats -- to stand with a generation of young immigrants and the children of immigrants who are struggling to find their place in American history.
And I don't mean just the 800,000 DREAMers themselves who would benefit directly from the bill. I want every Senator to think about the millions of other immigrant and non-immigrant young people who have fought for the bill. Being a graying student activist myself, I see a delightful -- and at times challenging -- spark of hope in the spirit of the young people fighting for this bill, whether it would help them directly or not. It is a remarkable counter-example to the stereotype of Facebook and Game Boy addicted youth who are thought to be apathetic about their nation, her laws, and society at large.
This generation of activists will not soon forget how legislators talked about the DREAM Act and voted on it when given a chance.
With or without the DREAM Act, one important fact will not change about this group. Every year, an estimated 500,000 Latino U.S. citizens turn 18 and therefore become eligible to vote. Add the children and grandchildren of immigrants who identify strongly with their family's immigrant experience and add the naturalized immigrant adults and you have a sizable group of new voters waiting in the wings and stepping up to the ballot box with each passing year. A million more eligible young Latino voters will be in play by the time votes are cast in 2012. In every state of the union, they are becoming the newest voting constituents of every Senator and Congressman. Do you think they will forget who voted for and against the DREAM Act in two years? What about the two million newly eligible voters in four years? Believe me when I tell you they will remember who fought for -- and against -- deporting their sisters, cousins, best friends, boyfriends, and teammates.
That's why you have seen Senators hedging their bets. Senators, especially Republicans that have supported the DREAM Act in the past, have concocted other reasons to stand against the hopes and aspirations of young immigrants. They want to vote on tax cuts first, they said in a letter. Check. They don't want it considered as part of a Defense Bill, even if it mandates a larger recruiting pool. Check. They say a lame duck session is not the right venue for legislating, even after wearing out the sole on a dozen pairs of shoes dragging their feet for two years. The excuses are melting away faster than a DC snowstorm.
And into the vacuum, the hardest core activists opposing the DREAM Act have the floor and present the face of the Republican Party to these voters on the immigration issue. They lump all immigrants in with criminals, keep pointing to Mexico and the border even though the DREAM Act is unrelated, and make wildly inaccurate claims -- sometimes on the floor of the House and Senate -- to stir up opposition to the bill.
Dear Senators, stand with those immigration opponents who defend the deportations and stonewall the DREAM Act if you want to, but you better enjoy it while you can. This generation of immigrants -- like every generation before them in U.S. history -- will become citizens and voters eventually. In the meantime, their neighbors, friends, and families are already citizens and voters and more are reaching voting age each day. They are writing down their naughty and nice lists this Christmas in pen, not pencil, and will remember what you give them this Christmas for a very, very long time.]]>BP: Busy Promoting a Culture of Recklessnesstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7862832010-11-20T14:16:39-05:002011-05-25T18:15:22-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/
However, the national attention has been caught by elections and power shifts and we seem to have forgotten Deepwater Horizon -- a very clear example of how big oil's impressive lobbying power can impact lives. Today, we are no longer inundated with images of the oil slick or shuttered businesses. Today, the nightly news no longer contains B roll of cleaning crews and oil booms attempting to contain this massive spill. Personally, I can't forget the pained face of Mike Williams, Chief Electronics Technician for the Deepwater Horizon, as he recounted the terrors of his escape from the burning rig. As he recalled thinking, "all these things that are supposed to protect us are failing. And nothing is going right." And I can't get the images of oil soaked birds, weighed down and choking, stranded on the Louisiana shoreline, out of my mind.
Mistakes can happen and can have serious consequences as a result. But, this is not simply a case of one rig, one blowout preventer, one bad batch of cement or one bad call. The reason why so much went so wrong is because BP is guilty of encouraging a culture of recklessness on its rigs. We don't have to dig too deep to find alarming evidence of their recklessness. On another deepwater drilling rig, BP's Atlantis, a whistleblower alerted the Minerals Management Service that he believed that BP did not have proper documentation and approval of its subsea components. BP itself acknowledged that this could "lead to catastrophic operator errors."
And the list goes on: In March of 2005, an explosion and fire at the BP Texas City refinery resulted in 15 deaths and 180 injuries. Investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) believe this explosion could have been avoided had it not been for the "organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation." Since safety does not appear to be a valued part of their mandate, BP refused to change its practices.
And it's not as though BP is deterred by the costs of these errors: In 2009 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined BP $87 million for hundreds of safety violations at the Texas City refinery, many of which were originally identified after the 2005 explosion at the facility but never addressed. As recently as March 2010, BP was fined another $3 million dollars for violations at a Toledo, Ohio refinery similar to those that contributed to the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion. Again, just like in 2005, no steps were taken to correct the safety violations.
And the culture of recklessness is prevalent at BP's operations all across our country: In 2006, failure to conduct necessary pipeline maintenance resulted in spills of over 200,000 gallons of crude in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Once again, BP did not follow established safety regulations, ignored warning signs, and was reluctant to make the necessary fixes once the problem was discovered. Major problems continued in 2008 and 2009 in the region, some of which resulted in major gas leaks, oil spills, injuries, and deaths. All of this following a $500,000 fine in 2000 for failing to report illegal dumping of hazardous materials by one of its contractors between 1993 and 1995.
I say enough is enough, which is why I introduced and won an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization bill which would require that the Secretary of Defense consider debarring BP from Defense Department contracts if he finds that BP is not a "responsible source." The definition of "responsible source" includes the provision that a prospective contractor must have "a satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics" and I am confident that the evidence will show that BP does not meet this requirement.
Barely a month has passed since the Obama administration lifted the deepwater drilling moratorium and already the oil companies believe that the Department of the Interior (DOI) should have an express lane for approving permits. The DOI has even been taken to court over this matter. What's the rush?
I support Secretary Salazar in taking his time to review and approve these permits. We have seen what rushing ahead brings us and we have seen what too many permits and too few investigators bring us. The oil companies need to chill and acknowledge that the pre- Deepwater Horizon status quo is unacceptable. We simply cannot continue approving permits that are rife with false claims such as support from experts who have long since passed away or environmental impact reports on animals that don't even reside in the region.
Imagine if we accepted this kind of recklessness in other industries. Would it be acceptable if the airline industry was allowed to build planes out of materials that had not completed stress tests? What if the pilot on the plane you take home for Thanksgiving decided only to lower half the plane's wheels during landing?
While the limelight on the Deepwater Horizon and BP's culture of recklessness has faded, we must do everything we can to ensure that we are never again faced with another massive oil spill. Even if BP refuses to learn the necessary lessons and insists on repeating costly mistakes, we must know better and do better. Part of moving away from BP's culture of recklessness is to understand and accept that the DOI must have the tools and time it needs to properly review permit requests. I strongly support Secretary Salazar's efforts to make the permit review process more demanding and I hope that the oil companies will step up and realize that rig safety starts with them. ]]>All-In For The DREAM Acttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7845412010-11-16T18:43:47-05:002011-05-25T18:15:22-04:00Rep. Luis Gutierrezhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-luis-gutierrez/The following is a statement by Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL), who met with President Barack Obama today at the White House to discuss immigration reform and the lame-duck session of Congress.
When I met with the President today, I told him that we need him to join us in fighting for the DREAM Act. I told the President we need him now and that we cannot waste another day and must push for a DREAM Act vote in the House and Senate during the lame-duck. It is not the time to hesitate or be unclear about what we are fighting for. We need the DREAM Act. I see it as a down payment on comprehensive reform and we will continue working towards comprehensive immigration reform today, tomorrow, and until it passes. But I will not pass up the chance to save a million or more children who grew up in the U.S., who know no other country, and who are threatened with deportation unless we act.
With the White House, Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and every Democratic Leader in the House and Senate pulling in the same direction, we can pass the DREAM Act before the end of the 111th Congress. Speaker Pelosi has indicated to me personally that she wants the House to move on the DREAM Act. Majority Leader Harry Reid has consistently supported a DREAM Act vote during lame-duck, and now the President and I have had an opportunity to discuss the lame-duck strategy.
By passing the DREAM Act, we have an opportunity during this lame-duck session to make a down payment on the immigration reform voters want, our country deserves, and our leaders have promised. We need a clear Democratic commitment in order to persuade Republicans -- who are needed to get us over the finish line -- to step forward.
There is a chance to pass the Dream Act if lawmakers and supporters work together across party lines in the weeks ahead. We must show a singular unity of purpose to get this bill to a vote in both chambers to demonstrate that we can put sensible policy ahead of divisive politics. Democrats and those Republicans willing to join us to address an important area of our dysfunctional immigration system can set the tone for the next Congress and the next two years. The DREAM Act is only a first step, but it is an important one in both practical and political terms.
Passage of the DREAM Act is achievable right now. It is the only piece of immigration reform legislation that can get broad support from Democrats and has attracted significant Republican support in the recent past. The policy of mass deportation is not working and is ripping apart communities and may only get worse under a Republican controlled House. We cannot squander this opportunity to save a million kids.
Obviously, I would prefer that we were talking about comprehensive immigration reform. Only a comprehensive bill will fix our broken immigration system, secure the border, and establish the rule of law. There is no other way. We have to have a functioning legal immigration system and eliminate the pool of immigrants in the U.S. illegally in order to significantly improve security and put our workforce on a stable footing where labor laws are evenly enforced. But in the short-run, the battle is for passage of the DREAM Act. Not some valiant good-faith effort to check a political box, but passage in the House and the Senate and a signature from the President.
Support for sensible immigration reform and rejecting the politics of demonization was a winning strategy for Democrats on Election Day. Three U.S. Senators -- Senators Reid, Barbara Boxer, and Michael Bennet -- and many other Democratic candidates in state and federal races, owe their jobs to the support of Latino and immigrant voters who helped fight back against anti-reform politicians whose messages were often ugly and divisive.
The bipartisan coalition of lawmakers that once stood strong for comprehensive immigration reform and those who have voted for the DREAM Act or pledged to do so should be given the opportunity to vote for the DREAM Act on its own merits.
Just this morning, I met with some young organizers and students from California and they told me that if this President is willing to fight for them, they are willing to fight for him. They told me that their undocumented classmates, siblings, and friends don't have the luxury of giving up saying "I'm tired of fighting" or "it's too hard." They must keep fighting and I told the President you want them to be fighting for you.