Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) shamed people for endorsing Christianity or celebrating Christmas while promoting border security on Thursday as he proceeded to claim that President Donald Trump would’ve shared responsibility in killing baby Jesus.
Gutierrez then stormed out of the House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration and border security after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen attempted to respond to his baseless claim that she was a “liar.”
“It is repugnant to me, and astonishing to me, that during Christmas — I like to call them the holiday seasons to be inclusive, but during Christmas because the majority always wants to just call it Christmas — that during Christmas, a time in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a Jesus Christ who had to flee for his life with Mary and Joseph, thank God there wasn’t a wall that stopped him from seeking refuge in Egypt,” Gutierrez said. “Thank God that wall wasn’t there, thank God there wasn’t any administration like this, or he would have to have perished on the 28th, on the Day of the Innocents, when Herod ordered the murder of every child under two years of age.”
“Maybe I haven’t gone a lot to Bible school, but I know that part,” Gutierrez continued. “Thank God. Shame on everybody that separates children and allows them to stay at the other side of the border fearing death, fearing hunger, fearing sickness. Shame on us for wearing a badge of Christianity during Christmas, and allow the secretary to come here and lie.”
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Nielsen fired back at Gutierrez’s “fighting words,” stating: “I’m not a liar.”
“We never had a policy for family separation,” Nielsen said. “I am happy to walk the gentleman through it again.”
“A policy of family separation would mean that any family that I encountered in the interior, I would separate,” Nielsen continued. “It would mean that any family I found at a port of entry, I would separate. It would mean every single family that I found illegally crossing, we would separate. We did none of those. What we did do is uphold the laws that congress has passed and we prosecuted those who choose to come here illegally.”
Gutierrez then got up and stormed out of the hearing.
“As far as not being compassionate, let me tell you what I have done,” Nielsen added. “And of course, he couldn’t be bothered to stay, so I am happy to tell the rest of the committee.”
“What we have done is we have worked extensively with the northern triangle countries to find ways to help vulnerable populations as soon in their journeys as possible,” Nielsen continued. “The current system puts them at the hands of those who prey on them and who abuse them, so we’ve worked extensively to increase asylum capacity to help them as soon as possible. We’ve worked on child exploitation, including very unfortunate new crimes which are live distance abuse where somebody goes online and directs an abuser on how to abuse a child as they watch. That is a crime that DHS investigates and prosecutes.”
“We have worked against traffickers,” Nielsen noted. “We have the first anti-smuggling, anti-trafficking strategy this January. We do investigations. We help survivors. I take personal offense on behalf of the 240,000 men and women of the Department of Homeland Security.”
