Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) accused Democrats on Monday of caring more about same-sex marriage than Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and Latinos after Democrats caved to end the three-day government shutdown.
Gutierrez blasted Democrats for acquiescing to a three-week spending bill in exchange for a DACA vote, adding that he did not see “how a vague promise from the Senate Majority Leader about a vague policy to be voted on in the future helps the Dreamers or maximizes leverage the Democrats and American people have over the Republicans right now.”
“If the Republicans said we are ending same-sex marriage, but we promise Democrats a vote later; or we approve of oil drilling in every national park, but you’ll have a vote later – do you think the Democrats would say yes?,” Gutierrez asked. “This shows me that when it comes to immigrants, Latinos and their families, Democrats are still not willing to go to the mat to allow people in my community to live in our country legally.”
Gutierrez said the three-week spending bill “simply kicks the can down the road with no assurance that we will protect Dreamers from deportation or fight Republican attempts to curtail or eliminate legal immigration.”
“I have said since September – when Trump killed DACA – that I will not vote for a long-term or short-term spending bill that fails to protect the Dreamers,” he said in the statement. “We will not fund their deportation and we will not exchange their safety for the deportation of others or for the prohibition of others to enter legally.”
Gutierrez said over the weekend that he was even willing to go down to the U.S.-Mexico border with bricks and mortar and help build the border wall himself in exchange for a permanent DACA fix.
He has also claimed that the government shutdown was really about the “first racist president” wanting to end legal immigration.
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