[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5865]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    MAY IS STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, we understand that the Speaker of the 
House is receiving a special visitor today: the heavyweight, undisputed 
champion and leader of the Republican Party, the person who speaks for 
every single House Republican, the Presidential nominee of the 
Republican Party. And just so that we are clear on how important this 
visit is, I hold in my hand the actual menu from the cafeteria today. 
This is the menu from the Senate Carryout, and today's special is--wait 
for it--taco salad. They even have little pictures of the taco salad.
  The Republicans love the Hispanics so much that they put taco salads 
on the menu so that we can honor the love and affection that their 
Presidential nominee feels for each and every one of us--the Hispanics. 
I am sure that that love and respect extends to all the working men and 
women in the cafeterias, not just one part of Hispanics, but the other 
working men and women who are part of the Blacks, the Asian, and the 
Whites. They work hard every single day in the cafeterias of the 
Capitol and the surrounding buildings. It is not something I am proud 
of, but the reality is many of them don't even make a living wage.
  Oh, and, look, it says here that May is Strawberry Festival Month in 
the cafeterias. Now, let's see if we can guess who picks the 
strawberries that will be served in the cafeterias, shall we, Mr. 
Speaker? I would venture to guess that every single strawberry that is 
served on yogurt to Members of Congress will have passed through the 
hands--rough hands--of an undocumented immigrant. Whether it was 
growing them, picking them, packing them, shipping them, unloading 
them, or some other part of the process, the Strawberry Festival Month 
really means ``undocumented farm worker month.''
  We are all complicit. Any food you eat will have been touched by 
undocumented immigrant hands, immigrants that the Republican Party 
wants to remove from our country by the millions--11 million people, 
their families, their businesses, their homeownership, their consumer 
buying power, their U.S. citizen wives and husbands, and their U.S. 
citizen children. They have all got to go.
  Now, it was less than 2 years ago, upstairs in this building, that 
the respected chairman of the House Rules Committee said to me, in a 
committee hearing, that he was unaware of anyone in the Republican 
Party, he said: ``There is no one in responsible Republican leadership 
who would suggest or support mass deportation.'' He said it was 
``inflammatory'' for me to suggest otherwise, just 18 months ago. He 
said it was ``extremely distasteful'' of anyone, including me, to 
suggest Republicans would favor driving out 11 million immigrants.
  Now the standard bearer, the leader, the nominee, Orange Chief--El 
Jefe Anaranjado--who is leading the party into the November election is 
calling for the mass deportation or removal of 11 million people, in 
detail, out loud.
  So as we eat our taco salads today or have a sweet, delicious 
strawberry, I hope my colleagues chew on the words and keep in mind the 
philosophy and values your leader is espousing on the campaign trail on 
your behalf, the de facto head of the Republican Party.
  Just taste the immigrant labor, the hands of Mexicans--and a lot of 
other people with and without papers--that went into every morsel of 
the food that you taste today. I also want you to think about the 
nearly 1 million American-born Latino citizens who have turned 18 in 
the last 12 months and the half a million more that will turn 18 before 
November.
  Think about the 82,000 Puerto Ricans who have left the island of 
Puerto Rico--most of them moving to Florida, a very important electoral 
State--and the tens of thousands more who will arrive before the 
election as citizens of the United States.
  As you eat your last strawberry, please, please, please, Mr. Speaker, 
I hope you will think about the 25 percent increase that we have seen 
in the first quarter of 2016 in citizenship applications, the 8.8 
million eligible immigrants who can apply for citizenship today, and 
the thousands more who will be eligible before November.
  Sure, you can chomp on your taco salad, Mr. Speaker, and you can 
concentrate on the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants who are 
daily targets of lies and slander on the campaign trail, but come 
November, the Latinos you will really have to worry about are the more 
than 27 million Latino citizens, like me, of the U.S.A. who are your 
constituents, who are eligible to vote, and who are fired up to vote 
more and more with each passing day.

                          ____________________