Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez warned President Barack Obama that his flip-flop on granting executive amnesty to as many as six million illegal immigrants will “repress the vote in the immigrant community,” noting some will conclude that “the Democrats don’t have our backs.”
In a conversation with MSNBC’s Luke Russert, the Illinois lawmaker echoed comments made earlier on Monday by immigration activist Erika Andiola, when she claimed Democratic voters may stay home in November following Obama’s reversal (RELATED: Immigration Activist Warns Dems Will Face Voter Backlash After Obama’s Amnesty Flip-Flop).
“Did the White House make a mistake in doing this?” Russert asked, citing a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed that claims the decision to put off amnesty will hurt Democrats in Illinois. “Was this a mistake, politically, by the White House?”
“I think that, you know, as I said, playing it safe, sometimes you win, but sometimes you can also lose,” Gutierrez began. “And there is a miscalculation.”
“I think that you really repress the vote in the immigrant community,” he claimed. “And in Illinois, there are Latinos, Asians, young voters, people from Africa, people from Europe. There is a whole immigrant community that is very diverse, comes from all the different regions of the world, that were really waiting for the president.”
“Wow, we have to really struggle with them,” Gutierrez explained. “Because what happens here is the people then decide, ‘Well, I’m not going to vote. The Democrats aren’t with us, they don’t have our backs, they’re acting spinelessly. So we’re not going to vote.'”
The Illinois Democrat urged his constituents not to think that way, noting that doing so would only be “weakening your position even further.”
“But it makes our job harder,” Gutierrez admitted, “and there may be consequences that we not [sic] see.”