[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 53 (Wednesday, April 2, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2807-H2808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 LET'S PASS AN IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Madam Speaker, on June 27, we will mark 1 year since 
our friends on the other side of the Hill in the United States Senate 
passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill.
  Four Senators from each party worked together to get a bill 
introduced on April 16 of last year. By May, the Judiciary Committee 
was debating and marking it up, and by June, it was headed to the 
Senate floor. Then after debate and many, many, many amendments, it was 
voted on by the full Senate. Sixty-eight out of 100 Senators voted to 
replace illegal immigration with legal immigration, legalize millions 
of people who live and work in the U.S., and secure our immigration 
system in the workplace and, yes, at the border.

[[Page H2808]]

  Madam Speaker, almost a year with no serious movement forward on 
immigration reform in the House, I am beginning to wonder whether 
Republicans will get serious about immigration before they run out of 
time. Well, I want to be helpful, so I have done a little calculating. 
Including today, we have 34 legislative days before the July 4 recess.
  Madam Speaker, let's be honest. If Republicans have not gotten an 
immigration bill seriously rolling down the tracks by the time we break 
for Independence Day, Republicans might as well just fold up the tent 
they are always talking about. One thing is for sure: Republicans won't 
be pitching a tent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue any time soon.
  I talk to Republicans, and they know the truth: if Republicans don't 
work with Democrats and bring an immigration bill to the floor, they 
are giving up on a chance to stand for justice, a sense of peace, and 
fairness for immigrants until after the 2016 Presidential election. 
That means Republicans will have to head into the 2016 Presidential 
election as the party that blocked immigration reform that would have 
finally brought justice to immigrant communities across our Nation. You 
will have said ``no'' to the dreams of DREAMers and ``no'' to millions 
of families and ``no'' to communities in every city across our country.
  Oh, and, Madam Speaker, if you think the Republican Party alone 
controls the future of 11 million undocumented immigrants, you will be 
sadly disappointed. If you don't act in the next 34 days, if you refuse 
to give the President a bill he can sign because you say you don't 
trust him to enforce immigration law even though he has spent more 
money and deported more people than any President before him, I believe 
he will act without you.
  He has alternatives under existing law. There are concrete ways 
within existing laws to help keep families together and spare U.S. 
citizens from losing their wives, their husbands, and their children to 
deportation in spite of your lack of action, and I believe the 
President is going to use those tools. I saw it in his eyes when I met 
with him. He didn't run for office so that he could deport 2 million 
people and put thousands of American children in foster care. He is 
heartbroken by the pain deportation has caused.
  Do you think he will simply sit by and do nothing because you refuse 
to act? The Republicans threaten lawsuits and even impeachment if the 
President acts to spare American families being broken apart by 
deportation; but this President will act if you refuse to, and the 
country will rally behind him because that is what Americans do in the 
face of humanitarian crisis.
  The Republicans threaten to impeach the President? What is new, Madam 
Speaker? Look, you have got to remember, for the first 3 or 4 years he 
was President, leaders in the Republican Party--I mean Presidential 
candidates and entire cable TV networks--questioned the President's own 
immigration status. We had ``birthers'' denying the President was born 
in America. They questioned whether he was an undocumented immigrant 
himself. They demanded to see his papers. Now we have ``deportation 
deniers'' falsely suggesting President Obama is not enforcing the law. 
Oh, he is really not deporting people, they say. That is all fake, 
something Obama, Univision, and Telemundo cooked up.
  The President knows the kind of pain that congressional inaction has 
caused for families and children.

                              {time}  1030

  The President wants to be an emancipator, not a deporter, and he will 
act if he has to. If you give him no choice, this President is going to 
take charge himself, as well he should.
  Once again, Mr. Speaker, we offer a lifeline to the Republicans. 
Let's work together to pass a bill before the President, faced with no 
other choice, takes action himself. You have 34 legislative days left 
until July 4, and you had better make good use of them. The American 
people are waiting.

                          ____________________