While stumping for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s reelection, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) praised Emanuel for making Chicago the friendliest city for immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, and said nothing that the Illinois Congressman does represents the interest of U.S. citizens more than his fight for amnesty.
Gutierrez also proclaimed that nobody has worked harder than he has to save the Republican Party from suicide.
Emanuel is trying to get over 50% of the vote on Tuesday to avoid a runoff, and Gutierrez proclaimed on Monday that that Chicago is the “friendliest immigrant city in the nation and Rahm Emanuel has a lot to do with that.”
Gutierrez noted that Emanuel “made sure that we no longer cooperate with immigraiton authorities when it comes to the deportation or separation of our families” and “no one can be asked” their immigration status when enrolling in Chicago’s schools or seeking heath care. Gutierrez said that Chicago is the only city in the nation where illegal immigrants are guaranteed two years of free college if they graduate with a B average from high school.
Gutierrez said that nobody worked harder against Emanuel four years ago, but conceded that Emanuel “has been a very good friend and ally to me politically.” Gutierrez said that “every time I’ve asked him for his advice and wisdom and his knowledge about how the White House works” so he could get his executive amnesty goal accomplished, Emanuel “has been there at my side to get it done.”
“Nothing I do represents the interests of U.S. citizens and voters in the 4th district of Illinois more directly than making sure their families are not destroyed through deportation,” Gutierrez said, adding that he is fighting to ensure that “the health of the economy and small businesses in my district are not undermined by our broken immigration system.”
Gutierrez, who predicted that the injunction against Obama’s executive amnesty would activate an unprecedented “militancy” among Latino voters that will drive them to the polls, then said that “the reality is no one has been working harder than I have to help the Republican Party resolve this issue and to help them not to commit suicide as a national party because they are driving away the fastest-growing group of citizens in the American electorate — Latinos.”
He said that 2,000 Latino citizens every day turn eighteen in America said Republicans will face a deep “demographic hole” even if America deported every illegal immigrant and allowed no more immigrants to enter. He told the audience that he has come under fire for his pro-amnesty views.
“I’ve been told to go back to Mexico so many times, I forgot I was born in Chicago,” he reportedly said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “Or that my parents were originally from Puerto Rico.”
Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is trying to get into a runoff with Emanuel, and Carlos Arango, “an immigration reform activist,” said he thought that “Gutierrez is really dishonest” for supporting Emanuel.
“The bad Rahm when he was in the Clinton and Obama White House, telling them not to move forward with significant immigration reform,” Garcia has reportedly said. “And then over the past three years, a convert to being very pro-immigrant, saying the right thing.”