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Rep. Luis Gutiérrez explains how immigration reform gets out of the House
The Washington Post has a pretty extensive back and forth with Rep. Gutierrez.I couldn't include it all but the more interesting things are highlighted.
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.......Speaking of the process more generally, how do you see your negotiations as fitting in with the small-bore, one bill-per-topic approach of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte? Do you see your agreement as informing the kind of bills he wants to put forward? Do you think you can work with him to get comprehensive reform through the committee? What is that relationship like? I joined the committee in order to get this done. I left 20 years on the Financial Services Committee to join the Judiciary Committee, to become a junior member there from my senior position on Financial Services, because I thought it was important to be there. I still haven’t given up that that was a wise decision. And I have said many positive things about Chairman Goodlatte and his oversight over the Judiciary Committee. I’m still optimistic those words will have been well placed. For example, we’re gonna have a hearing next Tuesday, which I’m very happy we’re going to have, on young immigrant youth, DREAMers, and the necessity for legislation. Majority Leader [Eric] Cantor has already expressed that he wants a pathway to citizenship for them. That seems to be, without putting words in their mouth, what they’d like to do for young people. And I’m happy that’s happening because what we’ve up till now — there’s a contradiction, obviously, between what happened one month ago in the committee, where they adopted an amendment by [Rep. Steve] King [R-Iowa] which says, “You gotta deport them all”, and for the 400,000 that have received deferred action, would suspend those work permits and Social Security cards. Now, we’re going to talk about not only keeping them, which is a great thing to do, but allowing them to become American citizens. Wow, have I had such an impact? Has the movement had such an impact in four weeks? I think that it speaks much more to the uncertainty of just how the Republican majority is going to address this issue, and so the uncertainty gives me hope. The glass will be half full. If you can provide a safe sanctuary for children, how far behind can you be with the parents? I think that’s kind of the contradiction between what’s expressed in their legislation and what they’re beginning to do. But you know what, that’s part of the process. Does it pose a challenge that there was a House vote on the Dream Act in 2010? Are people worried about being perceived as having flip-flopped on that? You mean the Republicans? Yeah. I don’t. Let me tell you why. John McCain and I introduced comprehensive immigration reform. It was Kennedy, he and Flake and I, interestingly enough, how the group really stays small almost 10 years later. It’s been 10 years. We started negotiating in 2002. We finally got a bill in 2004. There’s an interesting picture of us all together somewhere around here. There’s Flake, and me, and Kennedy and McCain over in the corner. And we’re still working together. My point being he was there. Flake, interesting enough and courageously enough, reintroduced the legislation in 2007 with me. He didn’t give up, we introduced it twice. First it was Flake-Gutiérrez, when he was in majority and then became Gutiérrez-Flake, but we kept the legislation going. McCain was running for president of the United States, as you recall, and didn’t reintroduce it with Kennedy. But then he’s back, and Rubio, I think, is a wonderful example, I don’t think of flip flopping, but of change and evolution. And Democrats, we believe in evolution so it’d be a little bit of a contradiction if everything stayed stagnant and the same. America is changing. Whatever happened in 2010, this is a much different country nearly three years later– 2 1/2 years later, we are a much different country. There was an election and a referendum, held in November. The immigrant community is better known. Their cause is better understood and more accepted. I think Rubio was confronted with new evidence. So we have constantly to fight people’s prejudices and their prejudices are informed not out of hatefulness but just out of a lack of understanding and information. So if you do not have information and understanding, and you don’t have experience, you have prejudices. And how do they get resolved? By information, and all of a sudden you go, “Well this is pretty stupid and I’m better informed today.” Now are there those who are just bigoted towards immigrants? Yeah there’s that group, but when you look at the Congress of the United States today, even when Democrats were in the majority in 2007, even when we were in the majority after Barack Obama’s election in 2009, there were not 218 votes that you can count for comprehensive immigration reform. And I say that based on the DREAM vote that occurred. There was 208 Democrats. So there weren’t 218 Democrats at that point to pass the bill by themselves. Now, there weren’t very many Republicans because of the 8 we got, 5 of them were leaving. So you see, there’s never been 218 votes. Let me state categorically for the Washington Post — news flash! There are 218 votes for comprehensive immigration reform. I said that with a good counter of votes, Rahm Emanuel, who as mayor is very, very generous when it comes to immigrants, but as a member of the House of Representatives was kind of stingy. And I don’t say that to be mean, just to put in some perspective for the readers, right? So even with his stinginess, right, we found 185, and he is very good at counting. I still remember Jan Schakowsky, I, and he sat in his office over at Irving Park when he was a member of congress and the head of the DCCC, and we went through this. We said, “Okay, here is where we’re at.” We thought 185. Well, you know, you do the math, where are you gonna get 30 republicans? And so what Barack Obama kept saying to me and Speaker Pelosi and everybody, every time we’d say, “Let’s organize for comprehensive immigration reform,” so they said, “Oh, slow down Luis. There aren’t 218 votes. Why don’t you just go away? Go find yourself 45, 50 Republicans and when you’ve found them, organize them, right? And have them ready to join the Democrats? Not that we’re going to help you in any way to galvanize that. Come back and talk to us.” Well guess what? I’m back. They’re here. The 45, 50 Republicans that we were always looking for — they’re present. And they’re present and they’re embodied in Carter, and they’re embodied in Paul Ryan, and in Sam Johnson, and in [Rep. Mario] Diaz-Balart [R-Fla.], who has been wonderful...... |
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