Dem lawmaker: Kelly is a 'disgrace to uniform'
Democratic Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) on Tuesday issued an unusually personal rebuke of White House chief of staff John Kelly, suggesting the retired Marine general has tainted his military service by working in the administration as President Trump ends a program shielding young immigrants from deportation.
"General Kelly is a hypocrite who is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear. He has no honor and should be drummed out of the White House along with the white supremacists and those enabling the President’s actions by ‘just following orders,' " Gutiérrez said in a scathing statement, shortly after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy will be phased out.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus member claimed Kelly backed out of a commitment to protect DACA recipients, who were brought to the United States illegally as children, from deportation while serving as the Homeland Security secretary.
“General Kelly, when he was the head of Homeland Security, lied straight to the faces of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about preventing the mass deportation of DREAMers. Now as Chief of Staff, this former general is executing the plan to take away their lifeline and taking steps to criminalize young people who live and work here legally," he said.
DACA is an Obama-era policy that protects from deportation almost 800,000 people who were brought to the country illegally as minors and sought work permits.
The Illinois lawmaker threatened to withhold his support from any legislation that fails to include protections for DACA recipients, calling the reversal a step in the "wrong direction."
“I personally will not support any funding bill that does not include a safe harbor for DREAMers — and I will work to have others join me in opposition. If they need our votes, we are bringing 800,000 young immigrants with us," Gutiérrez continued.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have urged Trump to amend the program, rather than do away with it entirely. In a tweet, Trump said Tuesday that the issue will now need to be resolved in Congress.
Who he is:
Early life, education, and early career[edit]
Gutiérrez was born and raised in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, then an immigrant and working-class community. His mother was an assembly-line worker, and his father was a cab driver. After his freshman year at St. Michael's High School, his parents moved the family to their hometown of San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. Gutiérrez, who had never before visited the island, reluctantly followed his parents; there, he learned to speak Spanish. Gutiérrez said of his experience moving from Chicago to Puerto Rico: "In Lincoln Park, I had been called a spic, then, all of a sudden, I land on the island and everyone calls me gringo and Americanito. I learned to speak Spanish well."[9]
According to Mark Krikorian, while Gutiérrez was in Puerto Rico, he was a member of the now-defunct Puerto Rican Socialist Party.[10]
In 1974, Gutiérrez returned to Chicago and enrolled at Northeastern Illinois University. He got involved in student activism and social justice issues, writing for the student publication Que Ondee Sola and serving as the president of the Union for Puerto Rican Students.[11] In 1976, while a senior at Northeastern, he began driving a cab in order to raise enough funds to visit his long-time girlfriend, Soraida, in Puerto Rico. In 1977, after graduating from Northeastern Illinois University with a degree in English, he returned to Puerto Rico and married Soraida. The couple returned to Chicago in 1978, and, unable to find other work, Gutiérrez took up taxi driving full-time.[12] Gutiérrez eventually found work as a Chicago Public School teacher and later a child abuse caseworkerwith the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services.[13]
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