Speech #1140091175

Mr. Speaker? I would venture to guess that every single strawberry that is served on yogurt to Members of Congress will have passed through the handsrough handsof an undocumented immigrant. Whether it was growing them. picking them. packing them. shipping them. unloading them. or some other part of the process. the Strawberry Festival Month really means "undocumented farm worker month." We are all complicit. Any food you eat will have been touched by undocumented immigrant hands. immigrants that the Republican Party wants to remove from our country by the millions11 million people. their families. their businesses. their homeownership. their consumer buying power. their U.S. citizen wives and husbands. and their U.S. citizen children. They have all got to go. Now. it was less than 2 years ago. upstairs in this building. that the respected chairman of the House Rules Committee said to me. in a committee hearing. that he was unaware of anyone in the Republican Party. he said: "There is no one in responsible Republican leadership who would suggest or support mass deportation." He said it was "inflammatory" for me to suggest otherwise. just 18 months ago. He said it was "extremely distasteful" of anyone. including me. to suggest Republicans would favor driving out 11 million immigrants. Now the standard bearer. the leader. the nominee. Orange ChiefEl Jefe Anaranjadowho is leading the party into the November election is calling for the mass deportation or removal of 11 million people. in detail. out loud. So as we eat our taco salads today or have a sweet. delicious strawberry. I hope my colleagues chew on the words and keep in mind the philosophy and values your leader is espousing on the campaign trail on your behalf. the de facto head of the Republican Party. Just taste the immigrant labor. the hands of Mexicansand a lot of other people with and without papersthat went into every morsel of the food that you taste today. I also want you to think about the nearly 1 million Americanborn Latino citizens who have turned 18 in the last 12 months and the half a million more that will turn 18 before November. Think about the 82.000 Puerto Ricans who have left the island of Puerto Ricomost of them moving to Florida. a very important electoral Stateand the tens of thousands more who will arrive before the election as citizens of the United States.