[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 106 (Thursday, July 9, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4960-H4961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, for the record, I am not Mexican, and I 
am not an immigrant. Given the rhetoric of one of the leading 
Republican candidates for President, it is important to point that out 
at the start before I am accused of being a criminal, a drug dealer, or 
a rapist.
  To be fair, Donald Trump didn't say that all Latinos or all Mexicans 
are rapists, just that the vast majority of Mexican immigrants are 
rapists, drug dealers, and criminals. Clearly, if anyone has firsthand 
knowledge of Mexican immigrants working in the United States, it should 
be the owner of a hotel, casino, office buildings, or a clothing line. 
But Trump doesn't seem to be basing his opinions about Mexican 
immigrants on personal knowledge.
  To justify his claims, Trump says that most of the women coming from 
Central America to the U.S. through Mexico and other countries report 
being sexually assaulted. On this point, he and I have some agreement. 
Women and children at the lowest rung of our economic and social ladder 
are incredibly vulnerable to sexual assault and rape. But the leap from 
saying that most undocumented women are vulnerable to assault and 
saying most undocumented men are rapists is, as he might say himself, 
huge.
  The documentary on PBS Frontline, ``Rape in the Fields,'' was a 
powerful expose on how immigrant women toiling in our fields are 
regularly the victims of rape and abuse because perpetrators recognize 
how vulnerable immigrant women are. They are afraid to talk to the 
police, afraid they will be deported, and afraid they will lose their 
children. And this fear to report crimes makes us all less safe.
  Yes, the rape and abuse is sometimes perpetrated by other Latino 
immigrants, perhaps even Mexicans, but these crimes are also committed 
by men of all colors and national origins, including red, white, and 
blue Americans.
  So when Donald Trump says on CNN, ``Well, someone is doing the 
raping,'' as further evidence that we should be building a big wall so 
he can plaster his name on it and keep immigrants out, I think it is 
pretty clear The Donald misses the point.
  The question is: How do we create an immigration system that protects 
us from criminals and that allows people to come with visas and not 
smugglers so that their work is honored, safe, protected by our labor 
laws? How do we make sure that these workers who contribute so much to 
America's economy are not afraid to dial 911 and report wage theft or 
assault when someone, anyone, is threatening them or their families?
  Now, the anti-immigration wing of the Republican Party in this body 
and on the air is saying that Trump may have a point. After all, a 
beautiful, innocent woman was shot in cold blood by a Mexican immigrant 
in San Francisco just last week.
  Why wasn't he deported? Why wasn't he held in jail the last time? And 
you will actually hear this on FOX News: Why is President Obama letting 
Mexicans kill beautiful young American women?
  As the father of two daughters about the age of Kate Steinle, the 
young woman who was shot and killed, I pray every night that no one of 
any racial or

[[Page H4961]]

ethnic background ever does my daughters harm, and I can only imagine 
the grief that her family is feeling.
  When we have felons in Federal custody or State or local custody with 
warrants for drug crimes who are deported multiple times and come back, 
this Congress has not done its job, unfairly leaving States and 
localities to cope with decades of inaction on immigration, criminal 
justice, and a range of other issues. I have no sympathy for the man 
accused in this crime. Murderers should rot in hell.
  So if we had a system that allowed people who have lived here a long 
time, contributed productively to American society, and who have 
children and other deep roots in the United States, what if we allowed 
them to come forward? What if we made them pay for their own criminal 
background checks, fingerprinted them, made them prove their identity, 
and check on them every so often to make sure that they are not gaming 
the system or committing crime?
  What if we had a system where people came here legally in the first 
place, if they could prove their identity and that they had no criminal 
background?
  I argue that such a system would allow us to reduce significantly the 
number of people who are in this country without legal status. It would 
shrink the size of communities where many people are undocumented, 
where people are afraid to call the police so that criminals find it 
easy to blend in and not stick out. Such a system would allow us to 
concentrate our enforcement and deportation resources on real criminals 
who should be jailed and then thrown out and kept out.

                              {time}  1015

  I argue that such a system would make it harder for criminals to hide 
and easier for honest, hard-working folks to contribute to their 
communities without fear. Unfortunately, that is exactly the system 
that some Republicans have been fighting against.
  When a hotel and casino owner gets on his high horse about Mexican 
immigrants, about crime, rape, and murder, let's think about who is 
standing between the United States--this country, the one that we love 
and we have sworn to protect--and a modern immigration system based on 
common sense, compassion, and, yes, the rule of law.

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