Meet The ‘Outsider’ Who Could Shape House Immigration Reform

(so full disclosure, I interviewed Gutierrez last week so this was fun to write up... also, his comms director tweeted it so I'm all kinds of excited)

WASHINGTON, D.C.– After 20 years in Congress, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has risen in rank as an authoritative and respected voice, but that hasn’t always been natural for him. For nearly all of his life, he has been an outsider looking in. In his new book Still Dreaming: My Journey from the Barrio to Capitol Hill, Gutierrez writes, “I’m too Puerto Rican for America and too American for Puerto Rico.” Born in Chicago to Puerto Rican parents, he was too dark-skinned to hang out with the white kids and too light-skinned to befriend the black kids. After his father moved the family back to Puerto Rico during his formative teenage years, Gutierrez’s broken Spanish made him a “gringo,” and an easy target for his classmates.

Gutierrez is at ease staking his own ground on immigration reform, which has positioned him well to be a key player as the House grapples to reach some sort of consensus on reform. He has twice been arrested for protesting the deportations of undocumented parents and youths by the Obama administration. But on Monday, he severed ties with two immigrant activist organizations led by undocumented youths. He is one of more than 180 House Democrats who support a House comprehensive immigration bill, but when some wanted to put together a more “liberal” immigration bill, he determined that such a bill would alienate House Republicans.

And according to his book, Gutierrez twice defended then-Senator Barack Obama (D) to the Latino community even as he campaigned for stronger border security provisions. But when Obama did not take up reform during his first term, Gutierrez warned that he would withhold support for the 2012 election and soon escalated tensions by calling on Obama to grant deferred action to undocumented youths in 2011– for the next year and a half, Obama insisted that he could not bypass Congress. Then June 15, 2012 happened. Obama implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Gutierrez states in his book that the Obama administration had not given him advance notice. Gutierrez forgave and campaigned for the President in 2012, saying, “I was glad to do it. After all, we’d started out as friends. All it took was four years of fighting, two arrests, boxes of petitions, and two national tours, and he took historic action to protect immigrants. Maybe we could get along again after all.”

During an interview with ThinkProgress on Wednesday, Gutierrez reaffirmed his outsider status. While he would prefer comprehensive reform, like the approved Senate immigration bill, he is also willing to support a piecemeal approach preferred by many House Republicans, so long as it includes a pathway to citizenship for qualifying immigrants and an end to deportations that “needlessly separate” families:

Read more here: http://thinkprogress.org/immigration...ration-reform/

Congratulations on the interview and tweet!

As you know, he has made news this week for severing ties with the youth immigration organizations. I'd love to read an article from you which delves a little deeper into this separation. I believe there is a disparity of goals (passing CIR vs stopping deportations), and which methods should be taken to pass those goals, among the grassroots and congressional entities.

Here's an editorial to get your feet wet if you're interested.

Is Esther writing these ?

You're always plugging your own articles...and yet, I do not see any positive news that indicate progress in this issue, eg, an scheduled vote for legislation. The fact is the Dems and the President made a huge tactical MISTAKE in not passing the federal DREAM Act when they had *the chance*. Piecemeal, bipartisan legislation which had they actually passed in 2009/2010 would mean those of us that qualified could have begun to petition for our parents (when needed, my own are already PRs) as soon as 2015/2016.

Huge, HUGE, mistake, and no one in the media is calling them out on it.

P.S. Forgive me, it wasn't a mistake, it is a re-election ploy from the Democratic party. God knows, I've grown in this country, I am bicultural, and feel very much American, even though I was excluded from DACA, but, BUT, even I as undocumented understand and accept that THIS IS NOT A ONE-PARTY COUNTRY. Dems need to learn to negotiate and get the job done.

I believe CIR is making progress in the House.

How so?

Yes, I'm writing these-- I work as a reporter at TP.


Yep, I do plug my own articles. As to your second point, what House D's and the president do is out of my control, but I do think that I focus a lot about holding House R's accountable since they are the majority. With that said, I will look into seeing whether there's a current news hook to your point and talk it over with my editor. I'm also a relatively new writer so give me time, I'm still getting the hang of this!!

Thanks for the link! I think another writer may be writing something about this. I think it's difficult given that everyone is super focused on the "in-fighting."

LOL, ThinkProgress is a blog for Center for American Progress, which receives millions for fighting for "CIR" -- which as grassroots activists have exposed in the past few months, is a complete lie. We need real change, not fake hopes.

Hi Prerna, I'd love to see links to that. And to slightly correct you, TP is a part of CAP Action Fund, which is a bit different from what I understand (like different sources of funding).

I saw that you called CAP homophobic recently, which I know you probably don't care, but hurts my feelings that you would characterize an organization that does a lot of good quality work. I wrote about your incredibly touching (and beautiful!) wedding over the summer and I hardly think that I took a homophobic stance: http://thinkprogress.org/immigration...ublic-wedding/

From what I've experienced at my work place thus far, I know that the immigration team is one of the hardest working groups around and I don't think I could ever work for an organization that doesn't have the best interest of 11 million people at heart.

@esther

I think you are a good writer. But your reporting makes you come-off as a 'ra-rah' person for whichever politician or 'advocate' you are interviewing. I am not a journalist, so I'll leave you with my reader's point of view.

Prerna's point is that whomever funds your employer's work, funds your work. Ask your employer. The fact that you wrote about her wedding has absolutely nothing to do with the sourcing of your payroll. I consider myself a very progressive person, and that means that I do not automatically give the Democrats carte blanche to manipulate, perpetually, the fight for legalization as a re-election ploy. Unfortunately, no matter how good intentioned you and your team are, there are more and more individuals and families who are opening their eyes day by day and can now see how the so-called advocacy organizations in DC are really only looking out to position themselves to receive millions of taxpayer funds and get in line for cushy political appointments.