Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), one of the most vocal pro-amnesty voices in Congress, claimed on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s administration is essentially endorsing “white supremacy” by winding down former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive amnesty.
He also blasted White House Chief of Staff John Kelly as a “hypocrite who is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear” who “should be drummed out of the White House along with the white supremacists.”
“This Administration is on a very dangerous trajectory towards the full-throated endorsement of white supremacy—the likes of which we haven’t seen in the open from a sitting President for a century,” Gutierrez said in his typically understated manner.
Gutierrez blasted Trump for pardoning former Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, praising “those who marched at the University of Virginia with torches shouting ‘Jews will not replace us,’” and launching his campaign for the White House by taking a strong stance against illegal immigrant criminals from Mexico.
“But this action on DACA to pull the rug out from under almost 800,000 documented immigrants who have lived here for at least ten years and cast them back into the shadows is the ugliest act of appeasement for the far-right’s white-supremacist goals of them all, so far,” Gutierrez said.
He also ripped Kelly, whom he accused of lying “straight to the faces of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about preventing the mass deportation” of DACA recipients while he was the head of Homeland Security, for “executing the plan to take away their lifeline and taking steps to criminalize young people who live and work here legally.”
“General Kelly is a hypocrite who is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear,” Gutierrez said. “He has no honor and should be drummed out of the White House along with the white supremacists and those enabling the President’s actions by ‘just following orders.’”
Gutierrez said “America is a better country than its President” and claimed Trump was winding down DACA, which Gutierrez believes is a “smashing success,” “purely out of spite and incompetence.”
“It just takes the country in the wrong direction and will be devastating to individual immigrants and families,” Gutierrez said. “The disruption, chaos and fear that this action precipitates will also strain state and local governments, educators, and employers. DACA is a program that has been a smashing success, yet the President, purely out of spite and incompetence is smashing DACA.”
On Monday, Gutierrez vowed to fight Trump in the courts and “in the streets” to protect DACA recipients from deportation.
“Yes, we will be on the streets fighting. Yes, we will go to the courts to fight, and we will also insist that our friends and our allies in the Congress of the United States don’t sign a budget, don’t support a budget, don’t collaborate with Republicans and give us a budget unless there is a safe place legislatively, an avenue legislatively, that secures the future for the 800,000 DACA recipients,” he said. “Let’s be clear. We are going to fight in the courts, we are going to fight in the streets, but also we are going to fight in the Congress of the United States to make sure legislatively we have a solution.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.