[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 42 (Thursday, March 13, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2363-H2364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Madam Speaker, the young lady in the white dress in 
this picture is a role model for all young people. Her whole family are 
role models. They are the family you want living on your street.
  They always shovel and salt their driveway. Their house is always 
spotlessly clean, and all of the children are on the honor roll. They 
make me proud to live in Chicago.
  Liz and her three older siblings are all U.S. citizens. When 
Republicans say to me that President Obama is not enforcing the 
immigration laws, I think of Liz's face.
  When the President says there is nothing more he can do to keep 
immigrant families together, I think of her face, too. When citizens 
say to me that it really doesn't matter whether they vote or not, I 
want them to think of Liz.
  Liz has a father who is facing deportation. He has lived in the 
United States for more than 20 years and raised a beautiful, healthy, 
upstanding American family.
  But Luis--I hear my Republican colleagues say to me--all of this 
deportation nonsense is in your head. The administration is fudging the 
numbers to make it look like they are enforcing the law, the 
Republicans say.
  But hundreds of thousands of American families are being split up. 
Over a 2-year period, according to Applied Research Center, 200,000 
parents of American citizens, like Liz's parents, were deported.
  And I hear my colleagues in the Judiciary Committee talk about 
Latinos--especially immigrant Latinos--that they are all criminals and 
drug cartel kingpins; and, therefore, we have to arrange our entire 
immigration system as if they are all violent felons.
  But what about Liz and her family? Liz is not a drug kingpin in her 
fourth grade class. Her parents and her siblings are not meth heads and 
meth chemists, but the random deportation wheel landed on them; and 
according to Republicans, they are willing to sue the President in 
Federal court if he takes action to spare this father of four American 
citizen children from deportation.
  But Luis--I hear my Democratic colleagues say--for several years, 
President Obama has instituted programs at Homeland Security to help 
families, removing noncriminals and parents and DREAMers from the 
deportation queue.
  And, indeed, the President and Homeland Security constantly talk 
about how many gangbangers and hardened criminals they are removing 
from the country; but that doesn't change the reality for Liz or her 
family. That doesn't change the fear that families, like Liz's, face 
every day.
  People who have lived here peacefully and raised a proud American 
family are just a broken taillight or an unlucky encounter away from 
losing everything, losing their children.
  And what about going out and coming back in ``the right way,'' as the 
Republicans always suggest? Despite 20 years in the U.S., despite four 
U.S. citizen children in his family who are willing to petition for 
their dad, Congress, two decades ago, made it impossible for this 
family to ever live together in the U.S. legally, unless we change the 
law again.
  But Republicans refuse to allow a vote on immigration reform when 
they know a majority of Members of the House of Representatives would 
vote to allow families, like Liz's, to continue living together and 
prosper.
  Sorry, Liz. Politics is more important than an American family or two 
or 200 American families or even 200,000; and the President has said he 
cannot do more to alleviate the fear that American kids, like Liz, 
face.
  The political price of helping Americans, like Liz, is too high. It 
is shameful that the Speaker of the House and the President of the 
United States are putting politics and election calculations ahead of 
Liz's family.
  To Liz, the solution is clear. If you will not act, she will. She 
said recently:

       No child should ever have to be separated from their 
     parents. When I grow up, I want to be a U.S. Senator because 
     I want to be in a position to help people when they need it 
     and pass laws that are good for people.

  I wish my colleagues felt the same way this young lady, Liz, feels. I 
don't

[[Page H2364]]

know if she will ever be a U.S. Senator when she is eligible to run in 
20 or 30 years, but I will tell you one thing I am pretty sure of: in 
less than 10 years, she will be old enough to vote, and her older 
siblings, even sooner than that.
  Madam Speaker, do you think she will remember which party prevented 
reform or threatened to sue the President if he spared her dad from 
deportation?
  Take a look at the picture. Republicans, they are hoping the dad gets 
deported and the mom never becomes a citizen; but the poor children are 
Americans already and will someday have a vote and, from the looks of 
it, will be voting for decades to come. I suggest, Madam Speaker, you 
do the math.

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