LOGAN SQUARE — U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) spoke out against President-elect Donald Trump's pick for U.S. attorney general, saying "no senator has fought harder against the hopes and aspirations of Latinos, immigrants, and people of color" than Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
Gutiérrez, who's represented Illinois' 4th District since 1992, released the following statement Friday morning:
If you have nostalgia for the days when blacks kept quiet, gays were in the closet, immigrants were invisible and women stayed in the kitchen, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is your man. No Senator has fought harder against the hopes and aspirations of Latinos, immigrants, and people of color than Sen. Sessions. He is a staunch opponent of legal immigration and someone who has blocked every effort to improve, modernize, and humanize our immigration system, which is two or three decades out-of-date. He ran for the Senate because he was deemed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as too racist to serve as a federal judge. He is the kind of person who will set back law enforcement, civil rights, the courts, and increase America’s mass incarceration industry and erase 50 years of progress.
The 4th Congressional District includes parts of Logan Square, Melrose Park, Brookfield, Cicero and Brighton Park, among other neighborhoods.
Gutiérrez, one of the most outspoken congressman on immigration reform, is known for pushing President Barack Obama to provide deportation relief to undocumented immigrants and their families.
Sessions, on the other hand, is known for supporting tough immigration enforcement policies. He has also been accused of racism throughout his career.
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