[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 29, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1021-H1022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           LATINOS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. As my colleagues know, Latinos are America's fastest 
growing population. So if you are a Presidential candidate and you want 
to make sure that every single Latino in America knows you strongly 
oppose sensible and fair immigration reform, you have to work pretty 
hard at it. It

[[Page H1022]]

takes a lot of time and determination. After all, the Latino population 
increased more than 40 percent between 2000 and 2010. A lot more 
Latinos, a lot more Latino citizens, and a lot more Latino voters.
  A lot of us live in swing States. We are about 30 percent of the 
population in Arizona, about 25 percent in Colorado, Florida, and 
Nevada. Indiana alone has 350,000 Latinos. Not so many, you say; but 
when you remember that President Obama only won Indiana by 26,000 votes 
in 2008, his Latino support was the margin of victory.
  The truth is we're growing everywhere. One-quarter of all of the 
children in America are Latino; 500,000 Latinos turn 18, and they all 
become eligible to vote every year. More than 50 million Latinos live 
in America. Most of them, 9 out of 10, are citizens of the United 
States.
  Fifty million is a lot of people to keep track of, especially if you 
want to offend each and every one of them, but that is apparently what 
Mitt Romney is trying to accomplish.
  To appeal to the most extreme elements of his party, last week he 
called Arizona's harsh immigration law a model for America. Well, he's 
partially right. Arizona's anti-immigration law is definitively a 
model. It's just not a model for immigration policy, but it's a model 
for an awful lot of other things. Let's just count them.
  One, if you're a politician, Arizona's law is a model for how to 
achieve early retirement. State Senator Russell Pearce was an author 
and lead sponsor of Arizona's draconian anti-immigration law. He talked 
about little else. His constituents weren't pleased, though, so Senator 
Pearce became the first State legislator in the history of Arizona to 
be recalled from office. The biggest backer of Mitt Romney's 
immigration model is now unemployed.
  Two, if you want to wreck your local economy, Arizona's law is a 
model for lost jobs and tax revenue. The purchasing power of Latinos in 
Arizona in 2009 was nearly $35 billion. That's right. One study 
estimated that undocumented immigrants alone paid $443 million in local 
taxes. Another study estimates that Arizona would lose nearly 150,000 
jobs if all undocumented workers were removed from the State.
  Three, Arizona's law is a model for how to energize Latino voters. In 
2004, George W. Bush, when running for President, received nearly 45 
percent of the Latino vote in Arizona. That's pretty good. How did 
anti-immigrant Jan Brewer do for Governor in 2010, 2 years later? More 
than 70 percent of the Latino voters voted against her. But wait. In 
2011, Hispanic voter mobilization led to the election of two Latinos to 
the Phoenix City Council for the first time ever.

                              {time}  1030

  In Daniel Valenzuela's district, Latino voter turnout increased 
fivefold, 500 percent.
  Four--and I'll stop at four because my time is limited--Arizona's law 
is a model on how to make decent people suffer.
  Alabama followed the Arizona model, and a judge advised a woman 
facing domestic abuse that, if she sought a restraining order against 
her abuser husband, she would be asked to prove her immigration status 
and face deportation--while her husband laughed.
  In both Arizona and Alabama, citizens and legal immigrants have been 
harassed and detained because they look suspicious or cannot 
immediately prove their citizenship status.
  So let's review.
  Mitt Romney's model for America: has an author who was kicked out of 
office; means lost jobs and tax revenue for everyone, not just 
immigrants; has mobilized Latino voters and pushed them away from the 
Republican Party; and has caused good, hardworking people--immigrants 
and nonimmigrants alike, documented and undocumented--to live in fear.
  Maybe Mitt Romney and I have different ideas of what ``model'' means. 
Maybe he thinks Bernie Madoff is a ``model'' investment banker or 
adviser. I think ``model'' means something you can be proud of, 
something that makes America better and stronger, more just and fair, 
something that shows America the way to the future.
  By that standard, Arizona's law is a perfect model. It shows America 
exactly the policy to avoid on immigration, and it shows Americans 
exactly the type of candidate to avoid for President of the United 
States.

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