Mestizos: For their race, everything. Outside their race, nothing.
If the lame-duck session ends without the passage of amnesty legislation, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has vowed that he and other Hispanic leaders will stage a full-tilt campaign of “civil disobedience,” like the African-American civil-rights movement of the 1960s. (The Daily Beast, Dec. 1, 2010) During an interview with The Daily Beast published last week, Rep. Gutierrez promised there will be protests, marches, and sit-ins in an attempt to garner support for amnesty legislation. The movement will operate autonomously and will no longer be beholden to wavering Democrats, filibustering Republicans, or President Barack Obama.Rep. Gutierrez hopes radical tactics like these will help persuade President Obama to use his executive powers to stop the deportation of illegal aliens. Gutierrez has not kept quiet about his disappointment with the Obama Administration’s actions during its first two years. “[The President] was clear in his commitment to me,” says Gutierrez. And yet “everything has been enforcement, enforcement, enforcement”—more deportations of undocumented immigrants, more troops on the border. “How,” asks Gutierrez, “is this different from what George W. Bush did?” (Newsweek, Nov. 29, 2010)
“I have only one loyalty,” he says, “and that’s to the immigrant community.”