It's so rare to see a Democrat call a Republican on their lies anymore. But credit where credit is due because this little slice of Rep. Luis Gutierrez tearing Rep. Raul Labrador's story to shreds on a Face the Nation debate today had me cheering.
A couple of things--surprise, surprise, surprise. The President of the United States, I mean to listen to my friend from Idaho, anybody would think that the President of the United States when he gave the State of the Union address last January kind of took the gavel away from the Speaker of the House after he finished his State of the Union address. He said to the nation, if you do not act, I will use the powers that I have, as President of the United States, to begin to fix the broken immigration system. He repeated that. Speaker Boehner called him at the end of June and said, "Mister President, notwithstanding all your good efforts, notwithstanding all my good efforts, the House will not act on immigration reform." And what did he say? I have called my cabinet together and I will act on the immigration thing. So it seems to me that the argument is now we're going to start legislating.
Well, it's twenty-three months into the legislative session. They control the House of Representatives. They don't need a single vote from the Democrats. We could have been in conference right now. I am not saying to my friend Raul Labrador, that they needed and he knows that I did-- I never said this. I said let's pass a House bill. I just want to make sure, Bob, when they said, no gay families, we didn't walk away from it. When they said there was no path to citizenship. We didn't walk away. When they said we needed to do it in parts and pieces, we didn't walk away. When we gave them thirty thousand more border patrol agents, we found the way to finance that.
I think the problem here, if you listen to Mister McCaul and you listen to my friend Raul Labrador. They mix things up. They want border security, border security, border security. Comprehensive immigration reform secures the border. You cannot secure the border and tell because they keep talking about a border, but you know which border they're talking about, the border between Mexico and the United States. Let me suggest to the American people that there are other borders, it's called LAX, it's called Kennedy, it's called right here Washington Dulles. It is called airports all over this country. Millions of undocumented workers are in the United States that came through those borders. If you want a bill and you truly want to secure our community the President, Bob, was forced to act.
Last, think about it a moment, they want to censure the President. The President has said, I'm inviting millions of people to come forward, go through a background check, a criminal background check at their own expense, pay the taxes that they owe, go back and work and raise their American citizen children, Bob. I think children are special and they're special no matter what the immigration condition of the parents that they have.
Oh, watch
the whole thing or
read the transcript it's great.