[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 1, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H823-H824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FIASCOS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 weeks, we have lurched 
from one fiasco to another, played out on a national and international 
stage. There were press briefings and Presidential statements filled 
with official lies. We have witnessed tragedies, late night firings, 
policy changes, and clarifications, also known as backtracking, and 
then we have come back for another round of fiascos.
  We are told we will not have a National Security Council as we always 
have had, one with the top minds of the intelligence community and the 
head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No, instead, we will have a 
nationalist security council, with Breitbart's Steve Bannon and his 
personal experience as a former Navy officer right there in the 
situation room. I am not feeling safer already.
  The President has acted to criminalize immigrants and to make every 
immigrant an equal priority for deportation. Trump actually buried a 
requirement in his executive order to count, every week, the number of 
crimes committed by immigrants and to have the government officially 
tally every single week the number of Mexican rapists, criminals, and 
drug dealers--the ones Donald Trump has been talking about since he 
launched his campaign.
  But interestingly, by law, the Federal Government and the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention cannot conduct research into how many 
people are killed by guns--that is outlawed--and how we can prevent gun 
violence--that is outlawed. No, the NRA and its wholly owned 
subsidiary, the Republican Party, has outlawed that. But the new 
immigrant rape report is ripped from the headlines of Breitbart and 
other rightwing websites, except that now it is the basis of government 
policy. We are really getting a lesson in who is and who is not a 
criminal in this post-``1984'' world of newspeak.
  We all know that there are millions of undocumented immigrants from 
all over the world, but this administration keeps whipping out that 
Mexican thing. Let's face it, the people thinking up these policies 
think all Latinos are Mexicans and all Mexicans are immigrants. So if 
you are an immigrant from Mexico, except for a few good ones, you are a 
criminal, a rapist, or a murderer.
  Millions and millions of people who the President wants to deport are 
people with traffic violations. They drove without a license in many 
States because the State in which they live and pay taxes does not 
issue driver's licenses to them. They are moms and dads who came back 
after they were deported because that is what moms and dads tend to 
want to do: to be with their children, watch them grow up, nurture and 
love them. And Trump's targets include young people and teenagers who 
are listed on a ``gang registry'' because a local cop thought they 
dressed or acted like they might be in a gang.
  But if you hire maids or nannies and do not pay the proper amount of 
Social Security and FICA taxes, or if they are undocumented immigrants 
and you don't pay the taxes, you are not called a criminal. No, you are 
called a Cabinet Secretary. In fact, we will put you in charge of the 
budget, including Social Security, the one you failed to pay.
  Or you can run the Department of Commerce, yes. If your business 
engages in the shady business of foreclosing on grandmas and widows, 
you get to be the Secretary of the Treasury.
  If you close down the Department of Energy, that is what you want to 
do, close down the Department of Energy, guess what you get to do. You 
get to run it.
  If you oppose public schools, you get to be Secretary of Education.
  And if you have opposed every inch of progress for civil and human 
rights in this country with every fiber of your being--immigrant 
rights, gay rights, basic civil rights for people of color, basic 
protections to make sure that everyone's vote counts equally--well, in 
that case, guess what you get to do, you get to run the Department of 
Justice, the agency ultimately charged with making sure everyone gets 
equal protection under the law.
  Up is down, down is up, and it is only his second week.

[[Page H824]]

  I feel our new President has some learning to do, and a lot of that 
learning has to do with the three branches of government, like what the 
executive branch should do when a Federal judge tells them to stop 
doing something they shouldn't be doing in the first place.
  I think the new President has a lot to learn about the freedom of 
religion, the separation of church and State, and how our refugee 
policies work. I think the people of Chicago could teach him a lot 
about the Fourth Amendment and its ban on unreasonable search and 
seizure and the illegality of holding immigrants in jail without a 
warrant.
  So I am offering to give the President my copy of the Constitution, 
autographed by Khizr Khan, the father of a U.S. Army captain killed in 
Iraq in 2004, who asked a question I don't think any one of us knows 
the answer to. That question is: Has the President ever read the 
Constitution? I am proud I will be standing with Mr. Khan and other 
leaders of different faiths later today at a press conference on the 
actions taken by our new dear leader.
  We can all see through the emperor's new clothes and his Chinese-made 
tie, and the view isn't pretty, Mr. Speaker.

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