Luis Gutiérrez

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Speaker and the Republican majority for coming to their senses and allowing the House of Representatives to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year. It seems odd that I would have to come to this well to congratulate the majority for funding one of the largest and most important departments in the U.S. Government. I cannot congratulate the majority alone because the bill funding the Department of Homeland Security was passed largely on the strength--yes--of Democratic votes. The vote was strong, 257-167, but 182 of those votes came from Democrats. In fact, every Democrat who voted voted to keep the Department of Homeland Security open and protecting America until the end of the fiscal year, 100 percent. Only 75 Republicans supported paying our border security and airport security professionals. Mr. Speaker, it should never have come to this. On the one hand, it should never have come to this because Members of Congress should never play around with the paychecks of our fellow government employees and threaten them with furloughs in order to score cheap partisan political points. The real people with real lives who work at O'Hare and Midway and at ports, airports, and border crossings, the real people with mortgages, car notes, and tuition bills who provide the security our democracy depends on do not deserve the way they are treated by this Congress. Lurching from funding crisis to shutdown showdown to last-minute votes is no way to run the greatest democracy the world has ever known. We know there is a sensible, bipartisan majority that is willing to compromise and do what has to be done to keep the basic functions of government operating. That group voted yesterday, and the leadership should find a way to let that sensible majority govern, despite those who take every opportunity to make governing next to impossible in this body. Secondly, it should never have come to this because the premise on which this funding and shutdown crisis rested was never logical or necessary. Those who opposed the President exercising powers granted to him by the Congress have filed a lawsuit in Federal court. They picked a sympathetic judge and have won a temporary injunction on the implementation of the executive actions the President announced last November. If they really believe in the strength of their case, this threat of a partial government shutdown was unnecessary. Clearly, they agree with me that their case is weak and that the courts will eventually overturn the temporary injunction. But the logic was always sideways. The very Presidential actions that some in the Republican Party object to are not even funded by the appropriations made by Congress. The criminal background checks and the adjudication of each person's application is paid for in full by fees of $465 for each immigrant, so this was never a logical funding matter. With or without funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the premise that Congress could force the President to deport low-priority deportees who grew up in the United States or who are the parents of U.S. citizens never held water. Even if people cannot come forward to apply and pass a criminal background check and get to the back of the deportation line, the basic way the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security prioritized deporting criminals, drug dealers, and drunk drivers over moms, dads, and DREAMers, that would not change. Think about it. It is as if the Republicans were saying they are so upset about their obsession with border security and their conviction that the President is not doing enough about border security that they were willing to defund border security in order to make their point. Jon Stewart can't write stuff that good, and he doesn't have to. Here is the biggest reason why it didn't have to come to a shutdown showdown. Republicans in the House could have taken action last year to fix our broken immigration system so that we don't have to continue this fiction about deporting 11 million undocumented workers. They could have had a vote to reform our immigration system so that people can apply for visas and come legally in the first place rather than being forced into the black market where there are smugglers. They could have allowed a vote that put E-Verify in place, put serious sanctions and jail time for employers in place, and targeted our enforcement resources on felons, not families. I stood here nearly every week last year and said: If the Republicans failed to act, the President would be forced to act within the limits of current law to rescue American families and target our enforcement resources on criminals. I was right, and for the record, I told you so, using a countdown right here on the House floor. The coalition to pass reform, which is made up of almost all of the Democrats and about a third or more of the Republicans--the same coalition that enacted the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security in yesterday's vote--existed then, and it exists today, if our leaders are willing to work together to address immigration reform. It is not too late, and I predict that the Republican Party will continue boxing itself into a corner until it addresses this important American priority.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of the President for speaking directly to the American people on immigration last night in a town hall on Telemundo and on MSNBC. He was very clear that he will comply with the dictates of the judicial branch, even as he fights a Federal judge's temporary injunction in the courts and is prepared to appeal those rulings all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. The President will follow the law--as he has been doing--and comply with the injunction. But let me be clear to my Republican friends and to the American families impacted--for now--by the court's action. Nothing about the injunction compels the President to deport anyone he has identified as a low priority for enforcement. No matter how many lawsuits are filed, how many symbolic votes are held in Congress, or how many Federal agencies are shut down, there is nothing the Republican Party can do to force the President of the United States to deport DREAMers or go after the parents of U.S. citizens if they have no criminal record and have lived here for a while. And the Republicans know there is nothing they can do to force the President to deport 5 million people that he has said he is going to protect--nothing. For years, Congress has only provided enough funding to deport 4 percent of the total undocumented population, or 400,000 people a year. Clearly, we in Congress know that only a small percentage of people will be targeted by our limited enforcement resources because that is the law that we here in Congress made. For all the talk about a rogue or imperial President, he is actually doing the job we asked him to do--to spend the limited enforcement resources we appropriated on doing what? Protecting the homeland by deporting the worst of the worst, not on DREAMers, not on the parents of U.S. citizens who have strong ties to this country and decades with no criminal background. The DACA program for DREAMers announced in 2012 is still in place and renewals are happening right now, as we speak. It is 640,000 strong. So, under the enforcement priorities and under the DACA program, it is clear to me--and I want to make it clear to everyone at home--that the President has no plans to deport DREAMers or the parents of U.S. citizens who have never been involved in crime. Now, I know firsthand about numerous efforts to negotiate across the aisle--that the majority of our country and the majority of the Republican Party would like to have a functioning legal immigration system. But the impression the Republican Party is leaving with the American people--the only solution the Republicans are offering--is that they demand the deportation of DREAMers and the deportation of the parents of 5 million American citizens who would be protected--and continued to be protected--under the President's executive actions. This is what my colleagues fail to appreciate when they stand alongside the hard-liners and opponents of legal immigration: in their zeal to support noncitizens, Republicans are hurting themselves with citizens. In my district in Chicago, just like the rest of the country, there is no caste system where people who were born in the U.S. never mix with people who weren't born here. There are no differences between the people who came with a visa, the people who overstayed a visa, the people who never had a visa to begin with, and people who were born U.S. citizens. When we celebrate the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving, believe it or not, we all sit at the same table. The undocumented are a part of our families, live in our neighborhoods, attend our churches, and are in classrooms with our children. What the Republican Party fails to see is that when they call for the deportation of DREAMers and long-term residents, they are calling for the deportation of our family members, our neighbors, and my children's classmates. Don't forget: most Latinos in America are not immigrants but are U.S. citizens. So it should come as no surprise that when the 1 million or so Latino U.S. citizens turn 18 this year, they will not think fondly of the Republican Party--the party that is bent on deporting members of their families and their communities. Another statistic: 93 percent of Latinos under the age of 18 are U.S. citizens. Ninety-three percent of them are U.S. citizens. They will not have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the party that fought tooth and nail to throw out their moms and dads. And the 5 million citizens whose parents are undocumented--who worry every day about whether their families will remain intact--are going to remember which party was cruel to their moms and dads, using them as scapegoats and insinuating they are all criminals bringing diseases to this country. The Republican Party's goal of forcing the President to deport all the noncitizens they want deported will simply never be achieved until the Republican Party elects one of their own to the White House. And the strategy of the Republican Party--forcing this President to deport all the noncitizens they want deported--pretty much guarantees that one of their own isn't going to get to the White House anytime soon.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to, first of all, thank the gentleman for raising the point of order. Keeping American families safe is the first responsibility of Congress, but Republicans have decided that appeasing the anti- immigrant Tea Party extremists is more important than protecting our homeland. Just consider one moment--every House Democrat cosponsoring clean legislation to fund DHS. It is clear, therefore, that there are sufficient votes to pass a bill immediately and keep DHS funded and open. However, House Republicans continue to block consideration of a clean bill--a clean bill--DHS bill and sustain their latest manufactured crisis--because this is a manufactured crisis. Think about it one moment. Three--not one--three former DHS Secretaries--Secretary Ridge, Bush; Secretary Chertoff, Bush; and Secretary Napolitano, Obama--sent a letter to Senators McConnell and Reid calling for a clean DHS funding bill. That is Chertoff, Ridge, and Napolitano, all said--former heads of DHS, two Republicans and one Democrat: It is imperative that we ensure that DHS is ready, willing, and able to protect the American people. To that end, we urge you not to risk funding for the operations that protect every American and to pass a clean DHS funding bill. I think it is preposterous that Republicans can even suggest a lapse in DHS funding, dealing a blow to men and women in charge with protecting our homeland at a time when such vigilance is of the utmost necessity. Do we need to bring up the three jihadists in New York City and Brooklyn and the continuing threats that the head of the FBI tells us exist in every State of the Union and this is a time when we are discussing that we are not going to fund the men and women on the front line at the Department of Homeland Security protecting our Nation? This is no time for political trickery and manufactured crisis. This is a time to put America first, the safety of American citizens first, and politics and partisanship should be at the bottom rung of any consideration, but that is not what we are doing. I think it is disrespectful to those who work at DHS, at TSA, at the Coast Guard, at the Border Patrol, ICE, and other agencies--a complete disregard to American people who trust us to govern responsibly. For what? To attack the President. Remember what I said this morning. Holding hostage the security of our homeland will not force the President of the United States to deport every noncitizen in our country. Republicans want to make a priority deportation, but that is not going to make our country safer. I find it a bit ironic that it seems to me that the basic reason we are not going to fund a clean DHS--which we had, we had a clean, agreed to by both sides in the House and the Senate, we were ready to go, until the Republicans woke up one day, all angry because the President went and issued an executive order. They said: We have got to go get those immigrants, so let's put at risk the funding of DHS. That was in order to stop a program that would allow about 4 million parents of American citizen children--4 million parents of American citizen children--go through a background check, get right with the law and about 1 million DREAMers, that is young people who are in this country and came here as children. So that is why you are holding it up. Guess what, the only thing that is holding it up is the preposterous decision by a Federal judge, which you went and handpicked--you went shopping: Let's get a judge that is going to agree with us ahead of time, and then let's declare it a victory. Well, that decision is being appealed. If I were your side of the aisle, I would just declare victory and say, Okay, we have a judicial process that is going on, it is going to be dealt with in the courtroom, and, in the meantime, we are going to protect the American people--because, in the end, when this is all said and done, if you shut down DHS, you do not stop the processing of the documentation for undocumented workers and for DREAMers. You don't stop it. Why? Because not a cent of DHS funding comes from here. Do you know where it comes from? From the application fee that they pay. So there will be money to pay those workers within the context, but you are not going to pay a Coast Guard member?

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Absolutely. In other words, we are going to put at risk the safety of our Nation while, at the same time, the 5 million that they call ``illegal'' are getting legalized because--how is it that you finance that? Through their contributions and the money that they have to spend in the application fee. So you don't reach the purpose. You have put in jeopardy the safety of our Nation in order to punish a group of people you can't punish. You can't punish them because they are paying for it. American citizens, while you are waiting for your visa, while you are waiting for your citizenship application, while you are waiting for that, guess what, the Republicans have decided you need to wait while the 5 million that the President said he wants to legalize continue to get processed. It is absurd what is going on here. We are putting at jeopardy the American people. You don't think the Border Patrol is an essential protection to the Nation? I don't know how you can say that on that side of the aisle because every other word is: Secure the border, secure the border, secure the border. But when it comes to securing the border, you say: Let's not fund it. We are not going to fund securing the border today. We are simply going to let it lapse and say to those Border Patrol agents, Do you know what? Why don't you show up and secure the border, but we are not going to give you enough money to pay your mortgage, we are not going to give you enough money in order to pay your groceries or pay your heating bill. We are not going to pay you for securing the border because we think we need to punish President Obama and all of those who would think that we might need to reprioritize how it is. Lastly, I want to say to the gentleman from Colorado, in the end--in the end--there are 5 million American citizens--children--who are going to remember this day, 5 million American citizen children who are going to remember this. Do you know how they are going to remember it? They are going to remember their moms and their dads who were undocumented--these Americans, 5 million of them--and eventually, they are going to reach 18 years of age, and they are going to vote. When they go vote, do you know what they are going to remember with their first vote? Who treated their parents so cruelly and so miserably.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House - Chamber for votes on Thursday, February 5, 2015. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on roll call vote 65, ``yea'' on roll call vote 66, and ``yea'' on roll call vote 67. Finally, I would like to indicate that I would have voted ``nay'' on roll call vote 68 in opposition to H.R. 527, the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2015.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for votes on Wednesday, February 4, 2015. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on roll call vote 59, and ``nay'' on roll call vote 60. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on roll call vote 61, ``yea'' on roll call vote 62, and ``yea'' on roll call vote 63. I would have voted ``nay'' on roll call vote 64 in strong opposition to H.R. 50, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2015. Personal Explanation

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for votes on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 through Tuesday, February 3, 2015. Had I been present on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, I would have voted ``yea'' on roll call vote 49, and ``nay'' on roll call vote 50 against final passage of H.R. 351, the LNG Permitting Certainty and Transparency Act. Had I been present on Monday, February 2, 2015, I would have voted ``yea'' on roll call vote 51, ``yea'' on roll call vote 52, and ``yea'' on roll call vote 53. On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 I would have voted ``nay'' on roll call vote 54, ``nay'' on roll call vote 55, and ``nay'' on roll call vote 56. I would have voted ``yea'' on roll call vote 57, and finally I would have voted ``nay'' on roll call vote 58 in strong opposition to H.R. 596, the 56th vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert my statement in the Record that the House should vote for bigger paychecks and better infrastructure instead of attacking my daughter's access to health care.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Wow, time flies when you are playing politics with people's lives. Just a year ago, as the Republican majority was rushing off to their retreat, they had a very different story. Here it is: House immigration reform, 2013. Goodlatte-Cantor working to give legal status to kids. House GOP leaders embrace immigration fix that includes status for undocumented. Republicans see the light on immigration reform. And what are the headlines today? Behold the Republican immigration strategy: mass deportation. One year ago--this is the difference in the headlines that your party's public policy on immigration has caused. But wait, let's see what you said in your principles: It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, those who knew no other place as home. Citizenship, legal residence for the undocumented youth--that was your idea, one that we applauded and we accepted and we cheered on. And 1 year later, you want to take away from 600,000 DREAMers their right to live in this country and to live legally. You want to deport them all. What happened? What happened?

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Well, then let me say this. I just think if that is what happened in 1 year, what are you going to come up with next year? What is your game plan for next year if this is the kind of position you have taken from one year to the next? But let me just say this. The action you take today I know you believe will cause fear and confusion and consternation in the immigrant community throughout this Nation, thereby causing the failure of the President's executive order because no one will sign up. But let me tell you something. The fruits of your action today will cause only anger and outrage and the mobilization of an immigrant community throughout this Nation that will be the death knell of the future of your party as a national institution. That is what you will reap today with this. Tonight, I will be with Congressman Cicilline, and I will be there standing with the Catholic Diocese, with evangelicals, with men of faith in Providence, Rhode Island, and people will come forward. Where will the Republican Party be? Simply telling them that we cannot do anything.

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Chairman, I thank Congressman Conyers. I just want to go back one moment, so that we can be very clear about this because I think we need to understand the difference between the rhetoric of today and the rhetoric of 1 year ago. This is 1 year ago: One of the greatest founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. I didn't write this. No one on our side of the aisle wrote this. I wish I would have. I am sure we would have all been proud to have been coauthors or cosponsors of that statement. What happened? What happened? What happened to that principle? You just gave it up, it doesn't mean anything to you anymore, you don't care about children, you think children should be held responsible for the actions of their parents? Because that is precisely what you are saying today, because 600,000 young people came forward and did exactly this. Then, wait a minute, it gets better because you said--and we were so happy because we thought we were moving forward because we thought the Republican Party was finally turning a page. You said: It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children. What happened? I want one of you to deny that this isn't one of the principles you took into your conference last year. It is what you took. What happened 1 year later? Well, you know, here is what happened, I think. You guys always say the same thing: Oh, it is that King from Iowa. He tricks us at the last second. He brings in one of these poisonous things, and there is nothing we can do about it. Well, what excuse do you have today, when you did it with all the premeditation and thoughtfulness and viciousness to bring this amendment forward with the support of your complete Conference? This is not a surprise. You thought this out. Where are you going to move the country forward to? Let me just tell you about one number--yeah, there are 600,000--it is 270, that is the electoral college. It is the number it takes to elect the President of the United States. You are out of reach there.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, if you live in Rhode Island, Texas, New York, New Jersey, or Florida, I am looking forward to seeing you in the coming weeks, and my friends in North Carolina and South Carolina, too. When I am not here or in my district in Chicago, I have half a dozen events lined up over the next few weeks, and I am going to be going from town to town, State to State, talking with people about the President's immigration executive actions and what it means for them, their families, and their communities. In congregations and community centers and schools, and with local elected officials, I am going to be doing outreach to educate the community of immigrants and also to mobilize the multitude of allies at the State and local level who will help millions of our immigrant neighbors come forward and register with the government. I will not be alone in this effort. Next week I will be with the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island, David Cicilline, and with his mayor in Providence holding an event to get people the information they need so they can get ready to sign up with the government. From Charlotte to Houston to Los Angeles, my colleagues here in the House are pulling together events to educate their own communities, and I hope to attend as many as I can. Evangelical congregations across the Nation, the Catholic Church, and my own archdiocese in Chicago are stepping up to organize and host events and begin laying the groundwork for millions of people who work and live and raise families in the U.S. to come forward and pay to be temporarily spared from deportation. Labor unions, corporations, small businesses that want to help families remain together, hey, they are preparing, too, and mayors, lots of mayors across the country. Apparently when Mayor Rahm Emanuel from the city of Chicago steps forward to say he will help facilitate the enrollment of families and individuals with the Federal Government, other mayors say, ``Me, too,'' and good for them. We can all help by playing a role in implementing the immigration executive actions taken by the President that will help millions of people. Congress refuses to pass laws that channel people into legal immigration with visas, and Congress refuses to address millions of people who have lived and worked here for a decade or more, and they refuse to address any meaningful enforcement like E-Verify or at the borders and ports of entry because they would rather play politics and play to the talk radio audience. But at the White House and on our side of the aisle, we are actually taking steps on immigration that will address the anxieties of the talk radio audience and not just inflame their frustration with the current mess. Remember, not doing anything, the Republican strategy, that is amnesty. We are going to make sure that millions of American citizens can live with their family members and that we not place American citizen children in foster care by the thousands because we are deporting their parents. We are going to make sure that more of the employment and tax base of the country is on the books, working legitimately for employers who have to follow the rules, and that employers will not get to pick between a legal job market and an illegal one that is not protected by labor laws, wage protection, safety regulations, and, yes, tax compliance. We are getting accurate information out to people to tell them that what the President announced is not immigration reform, it is not a permanent but a small step in the right direction within the confines of current law. As I said during the last Congress--and I am repeating it again today--I will work with anyone in either party who has a legitimate idea on how to make our immigration system more secure, more legal, more orderly. Most of my fellow lawmakers in this body support legal immigration, and to make progress we need to break with the group opposing legal immigration. We need a modern visa system that takes America beyond the current system crafted in the 1980s and 1990s. We need a modern enforcement with an electronic verification system that replaces a paper-based system of documentation. We need modern border security that works hand in hand with modern visa and enforcement systems so that we channel traffic through ports of entry where commodities, cargo, and people are inspected efficiently. More militarization, more deportation, and narrower legal immigration channels have not given us greater control over the immigration process and have led us to a number of problems. If you are serious about border security, legalization enforcement, legal immigration, then my door is always open. Tell me what you need to move forward. Do you need more fences? More high tech visas? More immigration judges? Tell me what it will take to get this Congress out of the current rut. In the meantime, I and a lot of my colleagues are going to be out there around the country protecting American families from destruction and protecting millions from deportation.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, as The New York Times said in an editorial last week, there is an immigration crisis looming next year, but it has nothing to do with the border. Rather, it is the huge effort that will be needed to fulfill the President's executive actions and get millions--millions--of American families out of harm's way by protecting them from deportation and destruction. Sure, we are celebrating the series of executive actions taken by the President, but we are also rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. So I want to talk just a little bit about what we are doing in the city of Chicago and what I am hoping my colleagues here in Congress and my colleagues across the country in community-based organizations, the legal community, and immigrant and Latino neighborhoods in every State will do to help with getting people ready to sign up when the window to submit applications opens in 180 days and the government's review of cases begins. This coming Saturday, the 13th, at 9:30 in the morning I will be at Rebano Church on the north side of Chicago, and more than 500 families have already preregistered for an orientation. We will go over what the President's announcement means for individual immigrants and their families. Then those who have preregistered will have an opportunity for a one-on-one preliminary evaluation of their eligibility from people we are calling family defenders. We are already scheduling follow-up events this month and into the new year, and we will be ready to accommodate the huge demand for accurate and trustworthy information. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been my consistent and outstanding partner in the effort, and we are both committed to making Chicago the model for the rest of the country; and for the advocates, the legal community, the business community, the public sector, we are all working together to make that a reality. That is right. New York. Listen up, L.A. Get ready, Miami, Houston, and Dallas. We are going to work to protect as many families as we possibly can in the city of Chicago, and we are challenging you to keep up. But it is not just the major immigrant gateway cities where we need to organize to protect American families. As the President showed us yesterday, cities in the South like Nashville are leading the way to integrate and assimilate immigrant populations. The spirit of inclusion is of utmost importance as we help families come forward, register with the government, submit their paperwork and fingerprints, and get ready and into the system. I have told my House colleagues that I plan to be on the road a lot at the start of next year, traveling anywhere they need me to travel to help them conduct outreach and educate immigrant communities where they live. But it is not just the blue districts where we must support our immigrant communities and make sure they register. It will be necessary in red districts, too; States like South Carolina, Arizona, and Alabama, States that tried unsuccessfully to push their immigrant community farther underground. I will accept invitation from those States, too, to get the word out and educate the community in whatever way I can. I can't tell you how many people have come up to me and said: Congressman, I don't know if this will help my family, my dad, my mom, my neighbor, or my parishioner, but I hope they will not still have to live in fear of deportation. There are millions who will not be able to come forward and sign up because their cases cannot be reviewed under the President's guidelines. I tell them that what the President has announced is bold, it is broad, and it is extremely generous and helpful to the United States and our immigrants who have no other way to get in the system and on the books; but it cannot go as far and it does not replace the need for congressional action and legislation. But let us all remember that, by the end of this week, the clock is going to have run out on the best chance the House has had in decades to address immigration in a bipartisan and measured manner. The Senate did half the work by giving us more than a year to craft a bipartisan answer to their proposal, and we tried in many, many different ways to help this House rise to the occasion, to get out of the partisan ditch we have dug for ourselves and to put the country on a path to a safe, legal, orderly immigration system that protects the country and its people by welcoming its strivers and innovators from around the world. In the end, the House was asleep at the switch and let the country down. But even as I work with people across the country to protect as many American families as possible, I pledge to my colleagues in both parties in the most sincere way possible, please work with us to solve the immigration issue so that we can move forward as a nation.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleagues about a mom I met on Tuesday. Maria Pena is from Colombia. She has three kids, started a small business, and has lived here for 14 years, and her Congressman is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Goodlatte. Maria's youngest is a U.S. citizen. Her employees are citizens. Maria wants to work and live legally in the U.S. but has no way to do so. She told me, ``Luis, I am too scared to leave the house unless I have to, so we drive to school, we drive to church, and we drive to the grocery store, and that is it.'' Maria knows anything else is too risky because any contact with the police could mean she gets deported and her family is split up. So, today, I give thanks that Maria and her family in just a few months will sign up for that same peace of mind my family has because she will be eligible for deferred action for parents of U.S. citizens, and I will think of Maria and her children no matter how many times the Republican majority makes me vote on bills to attack the President's actions that he is taking because they will prevent American citizen children from losing their parents.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I have spent the past year speaking every year in this Chamber about the damaging effects of our broken immigration system on our security, our economy, our families, and communities. We started with such great hope at the beginning of this Congress. But here we are in the final hours of the 113th Congress, and instead of moving a piece of legislation that the majority would put forward to address the underlying problems with our immigration system, we have before us another symbolic, superficial vote that will fix absolutely nothing. Mr. Speaker, this bill will not strengthen security at our borders, including the most important gateways that are rarely mentioned, at LAX, Chicago O'Hare, or JFK. This bill will not address the labor needs of our agricultural industry or tech industry. This bill will not protect American workers by implementing E-Verify across the board to make sure there is one legal labor force in America, paying their fair share of taxes and fully protected by American labor laws. This bill does not do that. This bill will not answer the pleas of U.S. American citizens who have a parent or a spouse who wants to get right with the law, is willing to submit to a thorough background check at their own expense and prove to the American people that they are not a threat and able to work, pay taxes, and contribute to the success of this country. Instead of moving forward, instead of legislating actual solutions to difficult public policy issues, instead of putting the emphasis on doing what needs to be done to improve the economy, the security, and the basic human decency of our laws, we are left with a tired and unfortunate partisan battle. It is a partisan fight based on pure fantasy, not just the fantasy that the U.S. Congress will ever appropriate enough money to jail, expel, and deport 11 million people and their families, but also the fantasy that what your side votes on today will ever become law. You know it. I know it. Apparently the majority prefers to take symbolic votes instead of legislating real and lasting solutions. Mr. Speaker, they didn't call Ronald Reagan a tyrant. They didn't call him lawless. Yet he said, ``I will protect 1\1/2\ million undocumented people that you call illegal.'' He protected them. When the Congress expressly said they would not be included for any benefit under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, he protected them. He used his Presidential power to do that. And he wasn't called a tyrant, and he wasn't called lawless. He was doing the right thing: protecting the siblings and spouses of those that would be granted legalization under that law that Congress expressly excluded. And do you want to know something? I am happy that President Barack Obama is following in that great and proud tradition set forth by President Ronald Reagan that he would rather put family first, the demagoguery and any anti-immigrant policy always last.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, last week, we celebrated Veterans Day, so naturally, there was a lot of talk about the military, but there was also a lot of talk about President Obama taking executive action on immigration. It got me thinking about Harry Truman. Like me, Harry Truman was from the Midwest and a plain talker who didn't mince words and sometimes made his fellow Democrats uncomfortable. Like every Republican and Democratic President in modern history, including this current one, Harry Truman was not afraid to use his executive power to fight for justice in the United States, even when Congress failed to act. In 1946, we had just defeated fascism. We were already locked in a cold war. Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American troops had helped deliver that victory against fascism, but when the war was over, they faced the same segregation, discrimination, Jim Crow, and violence that they had before they were deployed, markers of an era from which we continue to feel the lasting effects to this very day. In response, Truman established a Committee on Civil Rights. One concrete step the President wanted to take was to desegregate the military, but President Truman knew that legislation mandating desegregation would not pass through the U.S. Congress, which was dominated by Southern segregationists who, it is worth remembering, were mostly just like Truman, Democrats. But he pushed forward, and Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948. The last all-Black unit in the United States military was finally abolished years later. Congress caught up with reality and with the President, but it took many years. I am fairly confident that Democrats from North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisiana asked Harry Truman not to do a thing, but he did it anyway. I would venture to guess that there aren't too many Members of Congress today who wish that Truman did not desegregate the military or had waited however long it took for Congress to evolve on the issue of segregation. He used his pen, and we celebrate his courage today. Here is one big difference between what Truman did and what President Obama is considering: President Truman never, ever asked Congress for legislation to desegregate the military, but President Obama, as he contemplates taking executive actions to keep families together and spare certain immigrants from deportation, knows that he did ask Congress repeatedly to act. He has been judicious in his use of executive actions throughout his Presidency, despite facing a Congress deeply entrenched, well, in being deeply entrenched. But he did ask this Congress to act. He worked with both parties in the Senate to help shepherd an immigration bill through in June of 2013, and for a year and a half, he has waited, patiently deferring the use of executive action as a last resort. He has held off again and again so that he could give the Republicans in the House of Representatives time to pass a bill, but they never did, never even considered one. When Republicans in the Senate said gay people can't be included under any circumstances, the Democrats didn't like it. It offended us. But we said, let's keep trying to find a compromise. When Republicans said they needed 30,000 more Border Patrol agents, the Democrats found a way to include that, too, in the Senate. When the House said it would not even consider a Senate bill, we Democrats, myself included, said, okay, let's work on a House bill. And when Republicans said immigrants could not get a special pathway to citizenship and that we would have to pass many separate bills piecemeal, Democrats and the President never left the negotiating table. When the Speaker of the House called the President last June to say that, despite all of the Speaker's efforts and all of the President's efforts, the House was not even going to allow a vote, the President said he would do what he said he was going to do all along: use his pen under current law to help this Nation. Now the Speaker says that the President is picking a fight with Republicans over immigration and that he is vowing to fight back, which is the Speaker's right. But I would advise the Speaker that his fight is not with the President or with Democrats; it is with the American people. It is a fight he will have to deport millions of U.S. citizens' parents; the spouses, husbands, and wives of U.S. citizens; the parents of DREAMers who know no other country but this one. And that is who the Republican Party intends to fight. But let's be clear: nothing the President does will keep the House from working with the Senate to pass an immigration bill. Sitting at his desk in the White House, Harry Truman said, ``The buck stops here.'' And he was right then, and he is just as right today about the current occupant of the White House. The President has a responsibility to act, even when Congress refuses to do so. And just like the 1950s and the 1960s, after Harry Truman desegregated the military, it will be time for this Congress to catch up to the executive branch and to catch up to reality.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, we have not been back in D.C. for a full 24 hours and the immigration shenanigans have already begun. Republicans, even a few unhelpful Democrats, have been saying the President should not take executive action on immigration and should not act yet, as if his intention to use his executive power under existing law is a surprise. David Axelrod, safe in the confines of the University of Chicago, has no sense of urgency because none of his family members or neighbors are facing deportation. But it is a little different on my side of Chicago, where people live in nearly constant fear that a loved one or a friend will be detained and then strapped into an airplane for deportation. My Chicagoans have been waiting for the Congress to act and take action for over a decade. Polish, Ukrainian, Irish, and Mexican have been waiting, Jamaicans and Filipinos. They have been waiting for family members to get visas in backlogs that stretch to 20 years because Congress refuses to act. They have been heartbroken by laws that say, on the other hand, they can apply for a green card because they are married to a U.S. citizen, but, on the other hand, they must wait in exile outside the country, away from their husband or wife, their loved one, for 10 years in order to get that green card. Two hundred thousand, 300,000, 400,000 deportations a year. These statistics represent people, people disappearing from their churches, from their kitchen tables, from parent-teacher conferences. Why? Because Congress is doing nothing to make it stop or make any progress towards an immigration system based in reality and common sense, where people come legally with visas rather than smugglers. Now the GOP Conference in the House is saying, after a decade of delay, a decade of defying the American people, and a decade of demonizing immigrants, that they are so anxious to work on immigration reform. But there is just one thing stopping them: the President. The one thing preventing Republicans from taking action, they say, is that the President may also take action to keep families together and address the destructive nature of the deportation. But here is how one commentator in Atlantic magazine described it: ``Boehner's effort to hold congressional immigration reform hostage if Obama acts unilaterally is so absurd. Boehner killed the hostage long ago. Now he's hoping that if he pretends it's still alive no one will notice the corpse lying on the floor.'' To put it another way, it is a little late for the mayor of Chernobyl to say he is worried about someone poisoning the well. The President stood right there and said that if this Congress failed to act on important national priorities, he will use his pen and phone within current law to do so. Republicans heard him just as well as I did. Republicans had more than 2 years to address the bill and a year to schedule a vote on the Senate bill. I do not see one scheduled today, tomorrow, or next week. I doubt before this Congress expires will we see a bill scheduled. Let's just look at the record. Republicans said we can't do immigration unless it is done piecemeal; we can't do immigration unless people are denied citizenship; or, we need more border security spending; we need a parole officer assigned to each immigrant who gets to stay and work. And every Democrat, from the President of the United States on down, all the way to me, said, ``Yes, yes, and yes. Compromise and progress are more important than gridlock and making every Democratic constituency happy.'' Governing means when Democrats say ``yes'' to Republican demands, Republicans actually move forward and we work together. But none of that happened, despite the door being open, the table being set, and Democrats saying, in effect, Republicans can order anything off the menu. And yet here we are with no action, no vote, and the Republicans threatening to double down on no action if the President, acting within the letter and spirit of the laws passed by this Congress, takes action to help the Nation. The President will act as he should--boldly, broadly, and soon--to help people. And when he acts, tens of millions of our fellow American citizens will support him. Why? Because they care more about justice and practicality than they do about partisan politics and the blame game. Because a policy based on driving out 10 million immigrants is neither a sensible one nor one that we should be spending billions of dollars on. The President will act because Presidents before him have acted to solve immigration problems when Congress acted too slowly. The President will act because he believes, as the American people do, that families are more important and children should be raised without the government coming along and ripping their mommy and daddy away from them. I am tired of the manufactured excuses for inaction. The U.S. Congress can still debate, vote, and pass an immigration law if it wants to, and the best way to get it done will be if leaders on both sides of the aisle work together. If you don't like it, then do something. There is nothing in your way but yourselves.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, my press secretary has kept me pretty busy the last few days, talking about the President's decision to delay executive action on immigration, in two languages. I made it clear that from a political standpoint, in the short run and the long run, I think the President should have taken action before election day in order to be more transparent with the American people about the policy we all know is coming. It makes the job harder for me to generate enthusiasm among Americans to vote at all, let alone enthusiasm for voting for Democrats when there are members of my own party asking the President to hold his pen and his phone in abeyance until after the voters vote. From a policy standpoint, every week we delay is bad for our country. From a humanitarian perspective, deporting the parents of U.S. citizens is not in our national interest. Making it impossible for spouses of legal immigrants and citizens of the United States to pick up the visas that have already been issued to them is not in our national interest. Keeping the fear of deportation hovering over immigrant communities, like Pilsen and Little Village in my district in Chicago, has a damaging impact on the fabric of our community. It dampens the economy along commercial thoroughfares, like 26th Street, a key engine of the Chicago economy and tax base. Perhaps more important to those living outside of immigrant communities is to know that when the President acts, he will announce a tough but fair solution for millions of immigrants who do not have visas or any way of getting visas, but who have lived and worked here peacefully for years, even decades. It would work something like this: if they come forward, if they submit their fingerprints at their own expense to the FBI, and if they pass a rigorous criminal background check and meet other requirements, we will issue them a biometric identification card that says that they are not a priority for deportation. Not only do we get them in the system and on the books, but now they are in a program that needs to be renewed periodically with strict rules. This creates a huge incentive not to violate the rules of the program or the rules of our society. I know the President has heard all of these arguments, and I don't think I will convince him to change his mind again and move forward with key improvements to our deportation policies before November 4, but let us be clear, I think he has already made two important decisions. Number one, there is no longer any question that the President of the United States has the legal authority to act on immigration and deportations under current law. Even Republicans who have hired the best lawyers at taxpayers' expense to prepare their lawsuits against the President agreed and didn't include immigration in their farfetched list of Presidential ``overreaches.'' This is settled law, and despite the shouts of talk radio and a few on the Republican side, there is no real serious debate about the rock- solid legal ground from which the President can act and has already acted. Secondly, I know the President has decided going big, going broad, going generous, and going quickly after the election is the right decision because he and Secretary Jeh Johnson have to set enforcement priorities about which people they will deport first and which people they will deport last based on national security and economic interests of this country. He will act up to the limits of current law, and believe me, I can hear the cries from the other side, ``He can't act because we, Republicans, may try to do something on immigration in the lameduck. The President can't act because we, Republicans, are going to put the bipartisan coalition back together again in the new 114th Congress, and we will get reform passed in both Houses; or, you know, we were just kidding when we said all that stuff about immigration after our defeat on election day in 2012.'' They will say, ``This time, we really mean it because 2016 and the electoral college are staring us in the face''--but no, I know the President and the Democrats will not fall for that again. I don't see the President saying he will act if you don't act, as we have been saying for 2 years. This time, I see the President acting first, acting broadly, and acting generously, laying out a broad array of executive actions to mitigate the damage that is being done to our country by congressional inaction on immigration reform. If the Republicans are so inclined, they can take legislative action. It is what we have been begging them to do for two decades on this issue. We may even work with you if you are serious about it, but it will no longer be accepted as a delaying tactic for action by the executive branch of government. It will be a response to Presidential action. I think the President will have the courage to act, and then it is Congress' chance to act.

Mr. GUTIEERREZ

Mr. GUTIEERREZ. How did we get here? In the dark of night, Republicans are voting to deport DREAMers, take away the DACA program, and make every undocumented immigrant deportable. In November of 2012, the Republicans were shellshocked, and they spoke of turning over a new leaf with young voters, with Asian voters, with women, and Latinos. A year ago, I was working with Congressman Sam Johnson and Judge Carter of Texas. I did town hall meetings and public appearances with Judge Carter and with Congressman Valadao. I worked with Mike Coffman of Denver and stood up with Aaron Schock and Adam Kinzinger in my own State of Illinois. But now Steve King, Michele Bachmann, and Ted Cruz are literally writing the immigration script for the Republican Party, a script filled with ugly and mean policies that demonize children and marginalize immigrants and destroy families. In January, you were saying that all of the DREAMers should get green cards and citizenship. We always understood you wanted to deport their parents. But now, late on a Friday night, you are going after the DREAMers, who have known no other country but this one, who risked their identities and their families to come forward and sign up with the Department of Homeland Security and pass FBI background checks so they could get right with the law. The United States said, come forward and get right with the law. And now Republicans are saying they should go back in the shadows, back to a life of fear, where opportunities are few, and their futures are uncertain. The voters had a referendum on the program back in 2012, and the winner was President Obama, the DREAMers, and the American people. But now you want to take all of that away. Thank God the Senate is gone. The President has called this ``veto bait,'' and this will never become law. Is there no one in your conference who can stand up and talk sensibly when others in your party want to demonize children at the border and deport the DREAMers who live in our neighborhoods across America? You are so frozen in fear of your own voters, so frozen in fear of your own colleagues, and the Nation needs you to be courageous. Only cowards scapegoat children. And only those who are ashamed of themselves do it in the night, on a Friday. You are apparently not strong enough to stand up and craft real solution to America's problems. But here is the truth revealed about the Republican Party in the last few weeks, and why all of the talk this year about immigration reform was just talk.

Mr. GUTIEERREZ. In the end, the Republican position on immigration can be summed up as ``deport 'em all.'' When push comes to shove, your party is standing by the simplistic desire to deport 'em all. Most of you know that the approach of deport 'em all is nonsense, and you know it is suicide as a political strategy. But you continue to say, deport 'em all. Shame on those who will not stand up for the children at the border, and shame on all those who will not stand in the neighborhoods of our communities for the children who live with us. Say ``no'' to this bill.

Mr. GUTIEERREZ

Mr. GUTIEERREZ. Madam Speaker, I came to the floor on April 2 to tell my Republican colleagues that they had 3 months to craft an immigration policy before the July Fourth recess. At the time, there was still hope that sensible Republicans would see that their existence as a national party depended on getting the immigration issue resolved. I came back to this well almost every week to remind my Republican colleagues that time was running out. With the Nation gripped by World Cup fever, let me give you a visual representation of my message for the last 3 months. I gave Republicans a yellow card to put them on warning if they failed to act on immigration. If they failed to act, they would be out of the game. Having met with the President in March, I knew he was prepared to give Republicans time to craft an immigration reform bill, but if they failed to take action, I knew the President intended to use his pen and pad to save families at risk of being deported. Let's review where we stand 3 months after I gave you the first warning. A year ago this Friday marks the 1-year anniversary of passage of the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate. We had our own group of 8 here in the House crafting a tough but fair immigration compromise, but politics slowed us down and the effort collapsed. Some leaders in the Republican Party, knowing that immigration reform is the only way to achieve border security and workplace verification like E-Verify, legal immigration to feed our economy, and compassion and justice for how we treat our immigrant neighbors and friends, some in the Republican Party kept trying, and I thank them. On my side of the aisle, we kept an open mind. When the Speaker of the House said no to the Senate bill, I said, okay, let's find a way to craft a House bill. When Republicans said no to a conference, I said we will find a way to make it work if that is what needs to be done. Piecemeal bills they said, not a comprehensive bill. I said we will work with you. No direct path to citizenship for most immigrants, well, we didn't like it, but we kept talking. No one tried harder than I did to keep the two parties talking about how to move forward on immigration. There are Members of the House Republican Conference who need immigration reform politically, others who want it because it restores law and order, and others for reasons deeply grounded in their conservative philosophy. Still others in the Republican Conference are fighting for reform out of a sense of compassion and doing the right thing, as my friend Mr. Diaz-Balart from Florida has. But months passed and Republicans turned their backs on their own members, turned their backs on the American people, turned their backs on the business community, on Latino and Asian voters, and on those trying to save the Republican Party from itself. You know, Madam Speaker, I kept hoping the better angels in the Republican Party would tamp down the irrational and angry angels blocking reform the American people want and deserve. And then the last straw. As violence and poverty and gangs drive families out of Central America, I see Republican Members of Congress and their allies in talk radio and TV taking advantage of a humanitarian crisis to score cheap political points. In a few hours, the Judiciary Committee, which has done nothing to help move the Republican Party and the Congress forward on immigration, will hold a hearing on what it calls ``Administration-Made Disaster at U.S.-Mexico Border.'' I gave you the warning 3 months ago and now I have no other choice. You are done. You are done. Leave the field. Too many flagrant offenses and unfair attacks and too little action. You are out. Hit the showers. It is the red card. First of all, your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over. Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation, you failed. The President now has no other choice but to act within existing law to ensure that our deportation policies are humane, that due process rights are protected, that detention conditions are as they should be, and, most importantly, that the people who we are deporting are detriments to our communities, not assets to our families, economy, and society. I think we all know that you are out when it comes to the White House. By taking no action, even after repeated warnings, you have decided it is up to the Democrats to pick the Supreme Court Justices, conduct foreign policy, and carry out all the functions of the executive branch for a generation, for the next 30 years. The Republican Presidential nominee, whoever he or she may be, will enter the race with an electoral college deficit they cannot make up. Republicans in the House simply have no answer when it comes to immigration reform, and Republicans have failed America and failed themselves. Madam Speaker, it is now time for the President to act.

Mr. GUTIEERREZ

Mr. GUTIEERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I usually come here to talk about the ongoing crisis in American cities and towns related to our unrelenting deportation of moms and dads and longtime residents with no criminal history. There is no doubt we will see substantial action to dial back the record deportation this country has suffered over the past 5 years and a retargeting of deportations at criminals. The only question is whether the Republican majority gets its act together to participate in that process as legislators and leaders in the next 6 legislative days before the July 4 recess. Now, in addition to the deportation crisis, we face a new crisis quickly becoming a human tragedy of catastrophic proportions. Thousands and thousands of young children are fleeing Central America because they think it is their only option for survival. Faced with death threats, sexual assault, poverty, and no legal immigration options, little boys and girls are simply leaving their Central American countries by the tens of thousands. Some are coming to the United States to reunite with relatives, while many others are seeking asylum in any country they can get to, including this one. Girls as young as 11 and 12, threatened with rape in their own country, are risking rape, smugglers, murder, and exploitation for the slim chance of a life in the United States. Eighty percent are coming from just three countries--Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala-- countries that top the list of the highest murder rates in the world. Gangs, drugs, poverty, and hopelessness are driving kids as young as kindergartners to countries like Belize, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States. It is a complex international crisis that does not have easy solutions. The Obama administration, Homeland Security, and FEMA are mobilizing like they would for a major natural disaster. They are trying to address each case one by one, following the laws of this country we have for unaccompanied minors, families, and asylumseekers. The first goal must be to get the children in a safe place. Eventually, some may pass the rigorous test for asylum. Others may be considered for legal status as victims of traffickers, but many have no legal avenue and had none to begin with. In many cases, children will face an immigration judge alone, without a lawyer and without a clue what is going on. The majority get orders of removal and face deportation immediately. I have urged parents in the home countries that the risks are too great, the dangers too real, and the survival rate too low to attempt such a perilous journey, but let's be clear, adults on all sides of the border are failing when children feel they have no way to survive, other than risking their lives to cross thousands of miles. I do not see the countries of Central America stepping up to take responsibility for the danger, dysfunction, death, and despair in their other countries, cities, and towns. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus told their embassies that in a very testy meeting yesterday. Nor do I see the United States taking responsibility for the insatiable appetite for drugs on our streets--that, in most cases, fuel the drug trafficking, gangs, and desperation in Central America. In Congress, we are quick to point fingers of blame--especially in an election year--but surely, we must accept some of the responsibility ourselves. For decades, no realistic legal immigration options have existed for most people, and this breeds a clandestine network of smugglers that feeds on desperation and hopelessness. Invading or propping up failing states on the other side of the world--like Iraq--has meant we have paid little attention to the failing states in our own backyard in this hemisphere. Opponents of immigration and immigration reform mock the children on their radio shows and have even cooked up a new conspiracy theory that claims that President Obama has been calling these children to our country, so he can put more of them on welfare, so that these children, who can never become citizens, will somehow be allowed to vote for him. It is outrageous. We must not make light of this tragedy. These are children--desperate boys and girls who are being demonized after being brutally victimized by drug traffickers. Opponents of immigration are exploiting their desperation for political sport, but the stakes could not be higher for the Republican Party. With only 6 legislative days before the July 4 recess, Republican leaders have little or no time to demonstrate compassion and understanding of the immigration issue, enact real border security, allow legal immigration that feeds our economy, and get people who have lived here for decades on the books. Six days, Mr. Speaker, before this issue clobbers the Republican Presidential nominee in the 2016 election. You may have waited too long to act, but that is--as it always has been--up to you.

Mr. GUTIEERREZ

Mr. GUTIEERREZ. Mr. Speaker, some things do not change after a primary, even a primary result that no one, including the winning candidate, had predicted. The thing that does not change with the political winds in Washington is the calendar. There are only 10 legislative days before the July Fourth recess. Another thing has not changed. The Republican Party and the Republican leadership have a difficult choice. They can choose to address the immigration issue head-on and get it resolved, and give the Republican nominee in 2016 a fighting chance in his or her run for the White House, or they can go back to the bunker, sharpen their anti- Obama knives, and never get to the White House in the next generation, possibly two. As I have said on the floor before, if there is no serious immigration reform action headed toward a floor vote in the House by July Fourth, we will not see action at all, and it will be left up to the President to rescue the country from the worst aspects of our dysfunctional immigration system. On the Democratic side, we all prefer a legislative solution where the House, like our counterparts in the Senate, pass bills signed by the President. But in the absence of anything resembling leadership from the legislature, the President will not just sit back and watch a bad situation get worse. He will act in accordance with existing law to protect all immigrants he can. I believe he can protect literally millions of them through executive action. Immigration reform is not dead. It will just move to the White House for action if none comes from this House. So with 10 days left before July Fourth, where do we stand? The majority leader released his legislative schedule for the month of June, and reforming our immigration system is nowhere to be found. Immigration is the single most important issue to address for the Republican Party's ability to be competitive at the national level after this fall, and it is nowhere on the schedule before this fall. So what lessons have we learned? Half-measures to legalize some immigrants here and allow legal immigration for some industries there doesn't seem to have much political traction with conservative voters in the South. Blocking sensible immigration reform and sending out mailers decrying ``amnesty'' at the last minute doesn't seem to have much traction with southern voters in conservative districts. Articulating, however, a firm argument for why deporting 11 or 12 million people is not a realistic proposition, defending your position that legal immigration is preferable to illegal immigration, and making clear that the only way to actual border security is a combination of enforcement, legal immigration, and addressing the legal status for immigrants already living and working here seems to work pretty well with southern conservative voters. That is what the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Graham, would tell us, or the gentlelady from North Carolina, or every poll that has been taken in recent memory. And we know that in every part of the country outside the most conservative districts, mainly in the South, supporting the end of illegal immigration and a broad and rigorous legalization combined with serious workplace and border enforcement is not only the policy that works, it is the only policy that is viable politically. So every pundit on TV last night said it was time to man the barricades. They said immigration reform with a Republican stamp in a Republican Congress is dead because the American people want to be protected from the threatening world outside, and Republican Congressmen want to be protected from their threatening voters. But it is still up to the Republican leadership how they plan to proceed. Not a single Republican who opposes immigration reform needs to vote for it--not one. And we will still have a majority of the House voting to do what a majority of Americans want them to do; that is, address our broken immigration system. Next week in Judiciary we will have a hearing on the crisis of unaccompanied minors fleeing Central America, and we will be pointing fingers at everyone but ourselves, and not, I would note, using the few remaining legislative days available to craft a sensible border and immigration strategy as our colleagues did in the Senate almost a full year ago. Let us not accept the latest excuse for inaction on immigration, especially from those who want to take no action under any conditions. This Nation--built by and sustained by 400 years of immigration--needs a coherent system, and we need politicians brave enough to craft one.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, like a lot of Americans, I spent time traveling this past holiday weekend, but I never made it to the beach. Instead, I did what I do on a lot of weekends, which is travel the country building support for comprehensive immigration reform. I attended immigration events in Orange County and Riverside County in California, and, yesterday, I was in Richmond, Virginia, in the majority leader's backyard, listening to his constituents plead for congressional action. One young lady told her story perfectly in two languages. She came to the United States when she was 6. Now she has deferred action and temporary protection from deportation but wants a permanent solution for herself and her U.S. citizen sister. Another woman, a mom of two U.S. citizen children, wore a GPS anklet bracelet to the event and asked me how I could help her keep her family together. She has an order of deportation for June 6. They were pleading with the majority leader--who holds the key to the schedule and the calendar in the House--to please schedule a vote, just a simple vote on immigration reform. So far, he has refused to allow a vote. The stories from his constituents were heartbreaking: moms whose only wish is to remain here and raise their U.S. children and not fear a deportation date or a knock on the door at dawn. Children want their moms and dads to be here to see them achieve the American Dream. But I have to say that I had a heavy heart even before I arrived at the State capitol building in Richmond, Virginia, yesterday. The night before, I received a call letting me know that the White House intended to announce yesterday that it wasn't going to take action on Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's review of deportation policies. Therefore, for the next several months, the deportations will continue at a rate of 1,100 a day. Moms with U.S. citizen children, women with 25 years in this country and who have committed no crimes will get no relief in the short run. I have talked extensively with Secretary Johnson and had no illusions that a major policy announcement was in the works. Rather there are, I think, some enforcement adjustments that can be made now that would spare thousands from counterproductive deportations that are doing more harm than good to our Nation. I am deeply disappointed that the President chose to delay any action, and I know that many of us who have been fighting against the deportations that needlessly break up families and leave communities living in fear are also disappointed. And as I heard the stories of the constituents of the majority leader who are facing their own deportation or deportation of a loved one, I realized that it would be harder to save them in the coming weeks and months without some kind of policy adjustments revealed by the Secretary's review. While the Republican majority decides whether or not they will act on immigration reform and solve an important American problem, thousands more will be deported. But I also understand what the President is trying to do. He is saying that he still has hope that the Republicans are not just playing games with immigration policy. He believes, as I do, that Republicans still could use the last 14 legislative days before July 4 to make a real difference in the lives of moms and kids that I met yesterday in Richmond, Virginia. The excuse that House Republicans can't trust President Obama to enforce the law and therefore they will not pass immigration reform, that excuse no longer holds water, if it ever did. Yesterday, President Obama expended a great deal of political capital to give House Republicans time and space to come up with an immigration solution. It was a grand gesture on the part of the President. I know that I and a lot of my Democratic colleagues are not happy, and many in organized labor and in the pro-immigrant movement that have fought hard for policies to dial back the deportations are very, very saddened. It is not easy for a President to so fully and boldly stand up against his base, against those of us who have voted for him, loved him, and protected him, but he did it so that House Republicans could use the following weeks to take action on immigration reforms, House Republicans who have shown him nothing but disdain. In reality, for those families facing deportation and losing their children who live in the majority leader's district, they know that both the majority leader and the President have the power to help keep them in the United States and protected with their children. The majority leader can schedule a vote, and the President can use his pen and his phone to spare these families from what amounts to a life sentence. And of one thing I am confident: if the majority leader fails to act, the President will, and he will do so boldly. To my House Republican colleagues, I say, please act. The country will thank you. The children and the moms that live in your districts and fear deportations will thank you, and your voters will thank you. You have 14 days to work this out.

Mr. GUTIERREZ

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, last week, Tom Donahue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that if House Republicans fail to pass an immigration bill this year, the Republican Party should ``not bother to run a candidate in 2016.'' Even with a majority of Republican voters supporting immigration reform--and yes, a majority of Tea Party voters in support--the positions Republican candidates feel they must take in order to win over their base make them unelectable when they face the American people in the general election. Latino voters are repelled, and the loud but small contingent of immigration opponents have backed the Republican Party into a corner that they don't have the courage to break out of. So, Mr. Speaker, I give you George W. Bush, the man who will go down history as the last Republican President in American history. Tom Donahue is right. There is a demographic reality that will make Republicans a footnote in history, just like the Whigs and the Know- Nothings, unless they do something to get the immigration issue off the table. Look, there are only 18 legislative days before the July 4 recess, before the campaign season takes over, but you still have time to change history. If you do nothing on immigration, I guess you can take comfort in knowing that, from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush, you had a pretty good run. Freeing the slaves, winning the Civil War, interstate highway system, those all go in the highlight column; and there have been a few lowlights as well. All our grandchildren will ever know of Republicans as a national party will be what they read in the history blogs, and they will look at 2014 as the year it all slipped away, unless you act soon. With or without immigration reform, Latino voters are a force that is growing faster than Republicans can withstand and are tilting more towards the Democrats with each day Republicans stand in the way of stopping deportations that are breaking up immigrant families. Today, Tuesday, 2,000 Latino citizens born and raised in the United States--right here in the United States of America--will turn 18 and become eligible to vote. That is 2,000 today and every day until Election Day 2016. But wait a minute. That will continue for the next 30 years. That is 65,000 citizens a month, with or without immigration reform for the next 30 years. Throw in women, younger voters, Asian voters, and others who are strongly in favor of immigration reform, and the Republican Party has dug quite a hole for themselves by standing with Steve King of Iowa. Two million more Latinos voted in 2008 than in 2004 and tilted heavily to the Democrats after the Sensenbrenner bill, a Republican enforcement-only bill that criminalized immigrant families. Two million more Latinos voted in 2012 than in 2008 and tilted even farther to my side because of Romney's anti-immigrant message. And we aren't even registering the citizens in our community in the numbers we are capable of, but we are getting better at it with every passing year. Right now, I think House Republicans are at a crossroads. Many, including the Speaker, I think, want to get the immigration issue resolved before the 2016 elections. They know that the next few weeks offer the only chance Republicans have to both solve a tough American issue and get some of the credit for doing so. Others are already crouching in their anti-Obama bunkers and want to play it safe this year, regardless of the consequences for the future. Conservative columnist Juan Williams calls this the ``trap'' Obama is setting for the Republican Party. Williams knows, as I do, that President Obama can act with or without Congress, given the latitude he already has under existing immigration law. Williams wrote in Roll Call: The House's lack of action could open the door for Obama to take unilateral action on immigration reform. And I will tell you, he will take unilateral action. He goes on to state: The political result would be to make heroes of the President and his congressional allies while leaving Republicans to explain why the Tea Party element in the House refused to deal with the immigration crisis. He further states: Such an outcome would cement political loyalty between the growing Latino vote and Democrats. It would also stir the Democrats' liberal debate for the 2014 midterms. Williams is right. You have 18 legislative days to write the policy, whip the votes, and pass the bill. That is not a lot of time. Let us work together to put my 200 Democrats together with 60, 70, or 80 Republicans that we can get on board to get a bill--or a series of bills--passed, and let's get it done for the American people. Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the Republican majority that they do it for Abraham, they do it for George. Do it for any little boy or any little girl in America who wants to grow up to be a Republican President. But most of all, do it for our country.