众议员LUIS GUTIRREZ: CIR is far from dead# EB23 - 劳工卡
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AMY GOODMAN: Earlier Wednesday, hundreds of DREAMers and their parents
participated in an "aspirational citizenship ceremony" at a park near the
Capitol. One of the speakers at the event was Congressmember Luis Gutiérrez
, Democrat of Illinois. He joins us now from the Cannon Rotunda at the
Capitol. Congressmember Gutiérrez is the chair of the Immigration Task
Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, member of the bipartisan House
Gang of Seven that’s been working on a broad immigration reform bill. He
has an upcoming tour planned in which he’ll visit Republican congressional
districts to build bipartisan support for immigration reform.
Are reports of the immigration bill being dead exaggerated, Congressmember
Gutiérrez?
REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: Well, you know, in Washington, D.C., it’s kind of
the favorite of journalists around here. They love—I mean, they—I guess
they should use the funeral business or be morticians, because they love to
kill everything. Of course, this movement is far from dead. It’s alive. It
’s well. Look, it’s a very broad, expansive, deep movement. I mean, when
you get The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal editorial boards
almost singing synonymously the praises of comprehensive immigration, when
you have the AFL-CIO sitting down with the Chamber of Commerce and reaching
an agreement, when you have the United Farm Workers and the growers across
this country reaching an agreement, when you have evangelicals and very
progressive on the religious front together, working together, look, it’s
very broad, it’s very deep, and we’re going to be successful.
So, here’s what I think. I think the Republican Party is just going to have
to make a decision. I think that’s really the quandary they find
themselves in, and I think that’s really a reflection of yesterday’s
meeting. There are those who want to take the party forward. Paul Ryan,
Congressman Paul Ryan, says we should not have a two-tier society where we
have a permanent underclass. He wants to end that permanent underclass. He
wants to bring them out of the shadows into American citizenship. And then
you have others who simply do not like immigrants. Look, you could make—you
could put as many people as you want on the border. That border could be
sealed and impenetrable. They still would not vote for comprehensive
immigration reform or any reform. They just don’t want—to them, one
immigrant is one immigrant too many, and they’re never going to come around
. So that’s the quandary of the Republican Party. I think there are good,
solid voices in the Republican Party that are going to, in the end, prevail
on this issue.
Lastly, there’s something very unique about this moment. And that is, I’ve
been here 20 years. There are more than 218 votes. That is, there is a
majority in the House of Representatives for comprehensive immigration
reform. That’s never been there before. There are dozens of Republicans
that are ready to join a couple of hundred of Democrats to get this done.
All Speaker Boehner has to do is actually allow democracy to flourish in the
House of Representatives and allow us to vote.
Lastly, let’s not buy into this the Senate bill, the Senate bill, the
Senate bill. No one—the only one saying that we should adopt the Senate
bill is Schumer, the senator from New York. Apart from Schumer, I think
everybody else understands that you need to be respectful of a legislative
process in the House of Representatives. So stop using that as an excuse. We
are working on a bipartisan basis. We’ll work with Paul Ryan. We’ll work
with Congressman Carter. We’ll work with Congressman Johnson. We’ll work
with Congressman Diaz-Balart. We will work with them and others to formulate
a bipartisan proposal—distinct, different, but conferencable with the
Senate version.
participated in an "aspirational citizenship ceremony" at a park near the
Capitol. One of the speakers at the event was Congressmember Luis Gutiérrez
, Democrat of Illinois. He joins us now from the Cannon Rotunda at the
Capitol. Congressmember Gutiérrez is the chair of the Immigration Task
Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, member of the bipartisan House
Gang of Seven that’s been working on a broad immigration reform bill. He
has an upcoming tour planned in which he’ll visit Republican congressional
districts to build bipartisan support for immigration reform.
Are reports of the immigration bill being dead exaggerated, Congressmember
Gutiérrez?
REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: Well, you know, in Washington, D.C., it’s kind of
the favorite of journalists around here. They love—I mean, they—I guess
they should use the funeral business or be morticians, because they love to
kill everything. Of course, this movement is far from dead. It’s alive. It
’s well. Look, it’s a very broad, expansive, deep movement. I mean, when
you get The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal editorial boards
almost singing synonymously the praises of comprehensive immigration, when
you have the AFL-CIO sitting down with the Chamber of Commerce and reaching
an agreement, when you have the United Farm Workers and the growers across
this country reaching an agreement, when you have evangelicals and very
progressive on the religious front together, working together, look, it’s
very broad, it’s very deep, and we’re going to be successful.
So, here’s what I think. I think the Republican Party is just going to have
to make a decision. I think that’s really the quandary they find
themselves in, and I think that’s really a reflection of yesterday’s
meeting. There are those who want to take the party forward. Paul Ryan,
Congressman Paul Ryan, says we should not have a two-tier society where we
have a permanent underclass. He wants to end that permanent underclass. He
wants to bring them out of the shadows into American citizenship. And then
you have others who simply do not like immigrants. Look, you could make—you
could put as many people as you want on the border. That border could be
sealed and impenetrable. They still would not vote for comprehensive
immigration reform or any reform. They just don’t want—to them, one
immigrant is one immigrant too many, and they’re never going to come around
. So that’s the quandary of the Republican Party. I think there are good,
solid voices in the Republican Party that are going to, in the end, prevail
on this issue.
Lastly, there’s something very unique about this moment. And that is, I’ve
been here 20 years. There are more than 218 votes. That is, there is a
majority in the House of Representatives for comprehensive immigration
reform. That’s never been there before. There are dozens of Republicans
that are ready to join a couple of hundred of Democrats to get this done.
All Speaker Boehner has to do is actually allow democracy to flourish in the
House of Representatives and allow us to vote.
Lastly, let’s not buy into this the Senate bill, the Senate bill, the
Senate bill. No one—the only one saying that we should adopt the Senate
bill is Schumer, the senator from New York. Apart from Schumer, I think
everybody else understands that you need to be respectful of a legislative
process in the House of Representatives. So stop using that as an excuse. We
are working on a bipartisan basis. We’ll work with Paul Ryan. We’ll work
with Congressman Carter. We’ll work with Congressman Johnson. We’ll work
with Congressman Diaz-Balart. We will work with them and others to formulate
a bipartisan proposal—distinct, different, but conferencable with the
Senate version.
