Outgoing Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., delivered a blunt message for his congressional colleagues in an exit interview with a news outlet.
“For my friends on the Left, remember, there’s going to be a ransom that is going to be required. Pay it. It’s the right thing to do because we’re never going to be able to overcome the 60 votes in the Senate,” Gutierrez, 65, told NBC News on Friday of the political price for reforming the country’s immigration system when Democrats take control of the House next year.
“There are people on the Right that are going to want certain things. I don’t know if we have to give them a wall … but we’re gonna have to sit down and negotiate,” he said.
Gutierrez is preparing to depart Congress after a 26-year career on Capitol Hill. He will leave amid a partial government shutdown sparked by a disintegration in funding negotiations for President Trump’s proposed southern border wall.
Gutierrez has vehemently opposed Trump’s immigration policies as a lawmaker, getting arrested outside the White House last year during a rally demonstrating support for the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But he said he gave former President Barack Obama “hell” on the same issue, recalling an encounter he had with the 44th president at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
“He says to me, he says: ‘We’re both from Chicago, right? We came here to do good things, can’t you figure a way to get off my a—?’” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez, who will serve as a senior policy adviser for the National Partnership for New Americans after he leaves office, told NBC News he plans to help his daughter Jessica’s campaign for Chicago City Council ahead of her February election. He also intends to assist the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee in conducting outreach in Puerto Rican communities before he moves back to the U.S. island territory, where his parents grew up and where he spent time as a teenager.
