More Petty Theatrics from Republicans on Supreme Court, Immigrants and Refugees

“The message is clear from the Republicans: let’s double down on deportation and keep out people fleeing for their lives.”

Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) issued a statement as the Judiciary Committee meets today to reduce refugee admissions, the House prepares for a partisan vote tomorrow in support of mass deportation, and the President announces his nominee for the Supreme Court.  At 10:00 am ET today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark-up a bill to slash refugee admissions and add new waiting times, restrictions, and delays for people fleeing persecution, a process that already can take years.  Meanwhile, the House will vote Thursday on a Republican resolution authorizing a “Friend of the Court” brief in the case of United States v. Texas to be argued next month before the Supreme Court, aimed at making millions of individuals with U.S. citizen families and a decade or more of residence eligible for immediate deportation.  This happens as Republicans say they will not even meet with the nominee the President puts forward today to fill a vacancy on the Court.

The following is a statement by Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL):

To say the immigration issue has run off the rails in the Republican Party is an understatement.  Lies and demagoguery from Republicans on the campaign trail – plural – have heated the debate to a level where people are actually throwing punches and worse.

Now Republicans are stoking anti-immigrant fears and mass deportation fantasies more by playing politics with immigrants and refugees, plain and simple.  The message is clear from the Republicans: let’s double down on deportation and keep out people fleeing for their lives. 

Today in the Judiciary Committee, we are marking-up a partisan bill for refugees fleeing persecution that wraps itself in the rhetoric of security, but– as always – it is really just a campaign commercial designed to make the American people more suspicious of people seeking our help, desperate for the religious freedom this nation stands for, and the religious freedom Congress should defend.

The vote on Thursday is a political stunt disguised as a legal brief because the Republicans see a crass opportunity to stand with the anti-immigration wing of their party.  If Republicans are so secure in the validity of their arguments in an amicus brief for the Supreme Court, they should write the brief and submit it, just as 225 Democrats did last week and dozens of business leaders and state and local legislators and mayors have done.

We all know the Republicans are fond of walls, but with the Supreme Court nominee, they are taking stonewalling to new heights.  They say they will not even meet with the eminently qualified, Chicago-born nominee put forward by the President because that might focus press attention on the Republicans’ complete abandonment of their sworn duties under the Constitution.  These are the same petty theatrics we have had on Capitol Hill for too long and any Americans who hoped for more from the Congress and our new Speaker of the House will be disappointed once again.

Rep. Gutiérrez represents the Fourth District of Illinois, is a Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is a Member of the House Judiciary Committee and is the Co-Chair of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.  An op-ed related to immigration and the Supreme Court ran in the Boston Globe on Feb. 25: GOP politics of exclusion all but guarantee a Democratic decade.

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