[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 118 (Thursday, July 13, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H5763-H5764]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS MEETS WITH SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Secretary of Homeland Security 
John Kelly met with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
  We asked him about veterans who are being deported. We asked him why 
American citizens were increasingly having their families broken up by 
deportation. We asked him about the 800,000 young people who signed up 
for DACA and the hundreds of thousands of long-term residents of the 
U.S. who have temporary protected status. He really had no answers.
  We know he is on board with Trump's agenda to deport millions and 
millions of people or he would not have been appointed to his position. 
But, honestly, he seemed not to understand what his own agency does, 
the statutory powers he has as Secretary of Homeland Security under 
current law, or, for that matter, even how Congress works--so naive.
  Let me give Members some examples.
  Number one, Francisca Lino lives in Chicago, and her husband and six 
children are U.S. citizens. For nearly a decade, she stayed out of 
trouble and reported every year to immigration authorities.
  Now people who work for the Secretary decided she must leave the 
country and leave her American citizen children and her American 
citizen husband this August. Why? What changed, Mr. Secretary? 
Absolutely nothing, except you.
  The same goes for Jesus Lara in Ohio. He has four American citizen 
children who have lived their entire lives here but their family is 
being broken up by their own government.
  According to the Secretary, the courts are deporting them, not he or 
his agency. He denied any responsibility and said he can't do anything 
about it. But we all know the Secretary of Homeland Security has 
extraordinary powers to spare families from deportation, especially 
when doing so would not be in our national interest.
  I told him he could just pick up the phone and stop the deportation 
of Ms. Lino and Mr. Lara and spare the American people the cruelty and 
the hardship. But he is hiding behind the old ``it is out of my hands'' 
bureaucratic dodge and the old ``I am just following orders'' defense--
the general following orders.
  But, General, that is completely invalid because we know you have the 
power to do the right thing.
  On TPS, a program that currently allows hundreds of thousands of 
people to live and work here legally, the Secretary has almost 
unilateral power to extend it. But the Secretary was like: Well, I 
don't know what I'm gonna do. They have been here a long time. I don't 
know what I'm gonna do. I have to decide.
  What kind of answer is that, Mr. Secretary?
  To me this means that hundreds of thousands of people's lives, the 
lives that have been built in the United States, are about to be turned 
upside down. He wants to take hundreds of thousands of legally 
documented immigrants and make them undocumented and then go after them 
and their families. How does that make America great?
  Then there is DACA, the program where 800,000 children and young 
adults came forward and registered with the government, went through a 
background check and were rechecked periodically. Now Secretary Kelly 
says he thinks DACA is illegal, and, once again, it is out of his 
hands--and up to whom? Do you know whom he says it is up to? Attorney 
General Jeff Sessions--only America's number one opponent of 
immigration of any kind.
  So to me this is our call to action. The way we rose up to support 
women and Planned Parenthood, we have to do that again and again. The 
way lawyers and patriotic Americans stood at airports to protect 
refugees and religious freedom, well, now it is time to protect TPS, 
DREAMers, and other families in the crosshairs.
  We are going to have to organize, mobilize, and stand with our allies 
to protect families, to protect American citizens in those families, 
and to defend

[[Page H5764]]

communities because these guys are serious. They want to deport 
millions of people, and they are coming after the DREAMers and those 
with deep, long-term lives in the U.S.
  This is our call to action. We must resist. We must rise up and stand 
up for American values. Whether the President, the Secretary, or the 
Attorney General likes it or not, we need to make it clear that 
immigrants and immigration are here to stay.
  Last May, the Secretary of Homeland Security set an edict. He told 
over 55,000 Haitians: You have got 6 months. Get your paperwork ready. 
You are leaving the country.
  Then he is going to come after hundreds of thousands of Central 
Americans that are here legally in this country and have been here for 
10, 15, and 20 years. He is telling them also: Get your affairs in 
order. You are going to be deported from the United States. I am 
eliminating your legal status.

  When it comes to DREAMers, I want to make it absolutely clear to 
everyone today that he is going to end the program, and he is going to 
begin that process this September. He says: Oh, I like them. They are 
nice people, but there is nothing I can do. I am just going to talk to 
my buddy, General Jeff Sessions.
  Jeff Sessions has never liked the program when he was a U.S. Senator, 
and now he is the Attorney General. They will eliminate the program, 
putting 800,000 people in the crosshairs of deportation.
  We have the moment to rise up.
  (English translation of the statement made in Spanish is as follows:)
  It is the moment to resist, they are coming to destroy our 
communities, they are coming to deport dreamers. Let's stand up! Get 
organized and resist.
  Es el momento de resistir, vienen a destruir nuestra comunidad, 
vienen a deportar a los sonadores. Parecen, organizasen y resistan.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois will provide a 
translation of his remarks to the Clerk.

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