[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      ASSAULT ON LEGAL IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, as it turns out, deporting 11 million 
undocumented immigrants and banning Muslims from entering the country 
might not be the most radical anti-immigration ideas that the 
Republicans have come up with. There seems to be a sinister, anti-
immigration arms race breaking out in the Party of Trump.
  Last week, a Federal judge--Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas, pictured 
here--the same one whose judgment on immigration executive actions is 
being deliberated by the Supreme Court, ordered the punishment of every 
single lawyer in the Justice Department in 26 States. His claim is that 
some DOJ lawyers misrepresented to him whether they were complying with 
his injunction suspending the immigration executive actions announced 
by President Obama in November of 2014.
  After his injunction, they were only supposed to issue 2-year work 
permits under the old rules to immigrants who applied for and received, 
after an extensive criminal background check, the ability to be treated 
as the lowest priority for deportation. But the remedial ethics classes 
are for every single Department of Justice lawyer in 26 States.
  You say you weren't in any way associated with the case before the 
judge?
  Too bad.
  Never practiced law that is remotely related to immigrants or 
immigration?
  Sorry, the judge is ordering your punishment.
  Never been to the State of Texas in your life?
  Tough cookies, the Texas judge knows best, and is ordering you around 
as if you had argued cases yourself before his court.
  Overreach much?
  The newspaper La Opinion called Judge Hanen's plan ``onerous and 
absurd.'' I think that is an understatement.
  Judge Hanen is also using some good old-fashioned scare tactics to 
see if he can compete with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the GOP Presidential 
nominee for the title of who is so shamelessly anti-immigrant. Judge 
Hanen has called for the Department of Justice to turn over the names 
of 100,000 people who were possibly granted the 3-year, not the 2-year, 
work permits.
  So if you come forward, pay hundreds of dollars, submit your 
paperwork and fingerprints, then 2 years later a judge says, Though you 
have made no mistake and have zero--I want to repeat--zero--
responsibility for the controversy, you, the applicant, before the 
American government, could have your name and address published for 
every two-bit vigilante and Twitter troll to read.
  I thought Republicans were the ones who didn't like activist judges. 
I thought they wanted as little government as possible and to leave the 
legislating and, I suppose, the intimidating to the politicians here in 
Washington, D.C.
  So when the Republicans up the ante in one area, they have to up the 
ante in another. Nowhere is this crass political opportunism more 
apparent than right here.
  This morning we are having a little hearing in the Judiciary 
Committee aimed at--get this--shutting down legal immigration as much 
as possible. Your son's fiancee, your mom's doctor, your neighbor's 
nanny, your grocery store's janitorial crew, if they are coming legally 
to the United States, Republicans want to stop it, slow it down, and 
make it cost a lot more.
  The party obsessed with illegal immigration now has legal immigration 
firmly in its sight. And if you are from certain countries or are of a 
certain religion, you must have a special security review.
  I thought the campaign promise to bar Muslims from traveling here to 
the USA was a campaign promise that would never be realized unless your 
leader actually won the campaign.
  Don't get me wrong. If I thought Republicans were proposing a process 
to make things more secure and give the U.S. a better immigration 
system, I would support it. And I think we could pass something that 
was on a bipartisan basis in Congress today.
  But come on, guys. Do you really believe that the House of 
Representatives is trying to craft a sensible bill related to 
immigration in an election year? Do you think the American people are 
that gullible?
  No. The Party of Trump has launched an all-out radical assault on 
legal immigration, and hopes everyone is so scared of the ``rapey'' 
Mexicans, the sex-crazed Italians, and the Vietnamese immigrants with 
Ebola on the one hand and ``ziki flies'' on the other. Lock down the 
whole system, they say. Lady Liberty, lower your lamp, cover up your 
poem, and take a seat because terrorists got in once, which is enough 
reason to keep everyone out of America--from the computer programmer to 
the ski instructor, to the refugee fleeing systematic violence.
  If you ask me, maybe it is not the hundreds of Justice Department 
lawyers who have nothing to do with Judge Hanen's courtroom who need 
onerous remedial ethics training classes; maybe it is Judge Hanen's 
allies here in the House and throughout the Republican Party who could 
use a mandatory lesson on right and wrong.

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