Los Angeles radio talk show host Fernando Espuelas
Dear Congressman Gutiérrez,
Are you a secret Republican? Are you now actively engaged in making sure that Obama is a one-term President? Are you trying to destroy any chance for comprehensive immigration reform for the next 10 years?
Based on your words and actions over the last two years, it sure seems that the answer to all three questions is “yes.”
You have become a familiar face in the media, purporting to speak for all 52 million American Latinos. You tell the world of our collective pain, our supposed victimization at the hands of the unjust U.S. immigration system.
You remind us, over and over again, that Obama “broke his promise” to push for immigration reform in the first year of his Administration – a political absurdity when the country was undergoing the most devastating economic crisis in 70 years.
You decry the President’s enforcement of existing immigration law – never acknowledging that under our Constitution that is exactly what the President must do.
You leave out of your drama-queen performances the inconvenient truth – President George Bush was lambasted by his own party for his supposed lackadaisical enforcement of immigration law. The party eventually forced Bush to abandon immigration reform, leaving him humiliated by his own party and frustrating Karl Rove’s plan to capture the Latino vote for the GOP.
And now, Congressman, you tour the country giving histrionic speeches and making emotional statements to the media. “Obama broke his promise,” you tell people ad naseum – as if the President of the United States can enact laws without Congress actually passing them.
But that’s not how it works, right? Congress passes laws and the President signs them. You know that. So why the fiction that Obama is fully and uniquely responsible for our joke of an immigration “system”? In fact, you lay all the blame on the President.
US Congressman Luis Guitérrez
And in an act of pure political nihilism – and strategic folly – you have even advised that Latinos not vote in elections if immigration reform is not passed. You’ve hinted that you want to create a new “movement” outside of the Democratic Party.
Do you actually believe all this nonsense? Or has this absurd message merely become a handy platform from which to launch your media vanity tour, now taking you to 20 cities across the country in which you blameyour lack of success in passing immigration reform in the Democratic Party controlled House of Representatives in 2008 and 2009 on Obama?
If memory serves, you never passed a bill. Yet you were the point person in Congress for immigration reform – you were even made the Chair of the Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force.
Why were you unable to convince your own House Democratic colleagues to, at the very least, approve a bill in the House and put pressure on the Senate to do the same? President Obama has said over and over that he will sign an immigration reform bill – why didn’t you send him one?
In the Latino community we all speak about the need to come together, to “unify.” But unify around what? Your bizarre idea that we can reform America’s laws by not voting?
You seem enthralled by the transcendence of Martin Luther King Jr.’s accomplishments – yet you ignore the fact that Dr. King was principally fighting for the right of people of color to vote. Get it? Dr. King believed in America, he believed in the values of our country – and the institutions that, once reformed, would serve all Americans.
He never advocated not voting. He never advocated “sitting it out” – Dr. King spurred a whole nation into action. And opened the door for millions of people – including Latinos in the South – to vote and be able to participate in the democratic system.
And here’s the irony: you were born in America. You are not an immigrant. You were educated in our schools. Surely you must know how our system works – how it has worked for every immigrant group in this country.
You vote, you have power. If you sit home on election day, you let others chose your leaders and therefore the laws that govern our nation. The Arizona anti-Latino laws, now ruled un-Constitutional by a Federal judge, are proof of what happens when Latinos fail to show up at the voting booth.
Recently you told the media – your new constituency, I suppose – that you had not decided whether to support Obama for reelection. Does that mean that you will support a GOP candidate? With the exceptions of Newt Gingrich and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, all other presumptive GOP candidates have come out squarely against immigration reform.
So let’s see, you encourage Latinos to blame Obama for your own legislative failure – and then you encourage Hispanics not to vote, even though a critical part of the Obama coalition is Latino voters. Meanwhile, the Republican Party stands firmly against immigration reform. Effectively you attack the supporters of reform while strengthening its opponents. If there’s a strategy here for achieving immigration reform it is as opaque as it is risible.
But you, sir, are the Nativists’ best asset. With your high-profile campaign suggesting that Latinos not participate in the mainstream political process, encouraging our community to abandon the ballot box for more useless, even counter-productive marches, you retard immigration reform with every speech you give.
If there ever is a successful reform of immigration policies you will have nothing to talk about. Your burgeoning career as the Latino-whiner-in-Chief will be over and you will have to go back to the mundane job of actually getting laws passed.
As you well know, and as the new Census proves, Latinos have the numbers to be the king makers in 2012. We will be the determinate voting block for both the Presidency and control of Congress.
But unless we get our act together and register millions of citizens who are now hypnotized by your dis-empowering message of non-participation in the democratic process, there is a very real possibility that the next Administration and the next Congress elected in 2012 will be in complete opposition to immigration reform – pushing it back years, if not decades.
So unless you are in fact a double-agent, a tool of the Nativist extremist who are feverishly working to duplicate Arizona’s experiment in institutionalized racism across the nation, go back to Congress, roll-up your sleeves and get back work on building an effective coalition to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Your emotional speeches must give you a huge adrenalin rush – but America needs less of your made-for-TV drama and and more of a real focus on a smart, strategic reform of our immigration laws so that we can effectively compete in the 21st century.
Your MLK fantasies aside, that means passing new laws. And guess what – that’s your job.
Sincerely,
Fernando Espuelas
Franky Benítez 
A well-written essay by Mr. Espuelas. That said, I think the strategy of Rep. Guitiereez has merit.
Sadly, the media is our most effective means of governance today. Demonstrations make good television. And TV coverage drives congressional action. The Tea Party is a perfect example.
For the first two years of the Obama administration, Rep. Gutierrez tried exactly what Mr. Espuelas proposed: to build a legislative coalition for immigration reform. It was upstaged by the rants and antics of the Tea Party against the Healthcare Reform.
Dr. King tried to register black voters. But the greatest progress the Civil Rights movement made came in the wake of protests that garnered dramatic media coverage. It’s unfortunate but it seems the US public (and consequently our elected representatives) are incapable of action without the stimulus of news theater.
Moreover, mainstream Democrats assume the support of Latinos precisely for the reasons Mr. Espuelas notes. However, the mainstream Dems can have their cake and eat it too. Without public pressure, the Dems will pay lip service to immigration reform but avoid its political fallout by failing to take any action. So the end result will be the same whether Dems or the GOP control the federal government: immigration reform will not happen.
So cut Rep. Gutierrez some slack, Fernando. He may be a lot more savvy than you give him credit for.
I agree with you, Raul. The whole “don’t cause trouble” lecture is a bit patronizing.
Histrionics? Under President Obama – the president that promised relief for immigrant families on the campaign trail – we’ve seen deportations reach a record high?
HISTRIONICS? Families are being torn apart. The parents, spouses and families of U.S. citizens are being deported. Children are losing their parents. For what?!
You couldn’t be more wrong on this issue. Keep on talking Luis Gutierrez – it seems like you’re one of the few progressive voices for justice we have in the Congress!
You go!!!!
It is really hard to take this critique of Gutierrez that asks “why the fiction that Obama is fully and uniquely responsible” for immigration reform as president seriously when the writer engages in an even more absurd suggestion that ultimately a member of the house, Luis Gutierrez is fully and uniquely responsible for passing immigration reform forward. I mean seriously the president is not powerful enough but a lowly rep in the House is? I bet this same liberal apologist will be quick to pat Obama on the back for passing health care reform, suddenly his critique of what the president can and can’t do will fade away into a forgotten talking point that is no longer convenient.
Then he goes on to blame Latino voters for Arizona. This guy is like the abused partner who defends their abuser to the very end. Obama and not the voters hand picked Janet Napolitano to head up the Department of Homeland Security. That incredibly irresponsible move ON THE PART OF THE PRESIDENT showed serious contempt for the Latino community.
When Janet Napolitano, a democrat, was in the Governor seat in Arizona, bills like SB 1070 never saw the light of day because the republican state legislature was balanced by the veto power of a democratic Governor. Nice healthy balance, like the one we read about in school when they tell us our form of government is genius. Once Obama appointed Napolitano, knowing well that her replacement Republican wing-nut Jan Brewer would, after legally becoming Governor, destroy the balance in favor of a tea party Legislature in Arizona – HE and not latino voters paved the way for SB 1070 and the ban on ethnic studies, and on and on. In the meantime, Obama, the Commander In Chief aka top dog of every government department including Homeland Security, ushered in an era of record deportations. Almost 1 million families destroyed in just a little over 2 years. OBAMA DID THAT, not Latino voters or Luis Gutierrez. I am so incredibly tired of liberals apologizing for the Obama administration and trying to talk latinos into continuing the failed strategy of begging the Democratic party to take us for granted by giving away our vote election after election.
It takes the political courage of a minuteman border vigilante to chastise Luis Gutierrez and buddy up to the POTUS. If Fernando Espuelas had an ounce of political courage and a commitment to the 11 million people in the cross hairs of Obama’s deportation dragnet, this letter would have started by asking if Obama was a secret republican not Gutierrez. Then it would go on to layout Obama’s role in the Arizona anti-immigrant madness that is now spreading to Georgia and much of the south. Then Layout the deportation numbers. Then the increase in Border enforcement/violence and with it migrant lives lost in the unforgiving desert of Arizona. After laying out some truth to presidential power he would also expose the power that Obama has refused to use. Obama can sign executive orders, just as Republicans are quick to do, to move an agenda forward but he lacks the political will. He can exercise his veto power until republicans play ball on immigration as many republican presidents have done on various other issues.
But Fernando didn’t right that letter, he didn’t speak truth to power. He buddied up to the white house and the Democratic party elites with his lambasting of an easy target.
The reason the status quo continues is because of apologists like Fernando who market the current administrations abject failure on immigration reform in such a way that our folks might look the other way, hold their nose and give away their vote once again. Anyone who expects change with that strategy is drinking some really bad cool aid. Fernando Please stop serving our community this toxic punch.
Tea Partiers have pulled the Republican party to the right. This is because they don’t beg for the republican party to listen to them, they don’t do like Fernando and apologize for their republican elected officials who don’t act on the Neo-con Agenda. They run candidates against republicans when republicans are not making good on campaign promises. They make it clear that it’s either their agenda or a lost election. That equals political power. When your vote cannot be taken for granted, neither will your issues. We need to learn that as Latinos. When we stop being the political chumps that Fernando wants us to be and Democrats realize, Oh Shit if i don’t pass immigration reform I loose elections. Then and only then will our votes count. What good is the right to vote if it has zero impact? What good is bragging about record turn out from our community in 08 if it translated to zero reform on immigration, record deportations, more militarization of the border, a more anti-immigrant legislative panorama across the nation … This is what Fernando is calling for, a chance to brag about being the most pendejo constituency in the Democratic party base. Record voter turn out despite the presidents contempt for our issues.
This is spoken from the heart and adds so much to the debate. Am proud to have it hear on my comments page.