An quarrel with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer exploded into a full-blown altercation on Thursday as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus scolded him for undermining their efforts to pass legislation that protects Dreamers.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez led the charge, telling the Democratic Party boss, ‘I feel like your throwing us under the bus.’
Schumer told the House member that the claim was ‘insulting’ and tempers flared.
Gutierrez replied, ‘”Don’t you dare raise your voice at me,”‘ and Schumer responded, ‘”You raised your voice first,” ‘a member of Congress who witnessed the altercation told DailyMail.com.
An quarrel with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer exploded into a full-blown altercation on Thursday as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus scolded him for undermining their efforts to pass legislation that protects Dreamers.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus legislators are fuming over Schumer’s pleas this week to Democratic lawmakers to vote for a resolution to keep the government open even though it did not address the plight of illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were children.
Lawmakers who are part of the caucus, and Democrats who aren’t, had committed to using the must-pass spending bill as leverage to get the DREAM Act signed into law.
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, signaled her support for the tactic when she last month said, ‘We will not leave here without here without the DREAM Act passing with a DACA fix.’
However, the movement to allow a partial shutdown of the government to take place until an immigration compromise could be reached fizzled out.
Two continuing resolutions to keep the government open were approved by Republicans with the support of Democrats in the House and the Senate.
The latest bill extends federal funding through Jan. 19, taking the pressure off legislators finish the fiscal legislation or face a shutdown three days before Christmas.
Members of the Hispanic caucus were staunchly against the deal, and Latino leadership said so during a meeting with Pelosi, Schumer and Democratic leader Dick Durbin on Wednesday that was first reported on by the Washington Post.
Pelosi concurred, a member familiar with the discussion said. She ultimately voted against the GOP-brokered spending resolution.
Schumer made excuses and claimed that they would never see DREAM Act legislation become law if they made this their big stand.
The following day at a convening of the full CHC group two Members of Congress revealed conversations they’d overheard in which Schumer had called Democratic representatives and asked them to vote in favor of the resolution that punted the spending debate to the middle of January.
Schumer told them their yea votes would grease the skids for members of his caucus in the Senate to let the legislation pass without incident.
‘That pretty much set everybody off,’ a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus revealed to DailyMail.com.
A group vote was held, and they decided it was time to confront Schumer.
‘It devolved pretty quickly,’ the source said of the argument that ensued between Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, and Gutierrez, an Illinois representative who plans retire at the end of 2018.
Others jumped in, and Schumer eventually agreed to back off. In the end, 32 Democrats refused to support the resolution. The effort fell short, though, of the 41 necessary to launch a filibuster.
‘We weren’t that naive. We knew we weren’t going to get the DREAM act at the last minute,’ the CHC member who spoke to DailyMail.com said. ‘What we knew was that we could not have Schumer undercutting us anymore, and that we had to make sure he knew this was a red line, especially when he goes into the budget cap negotiations.’
Democrats will have another chance in January to force the issue when federal spending authorization nears the end of its rope once again. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is hopeful it can use a cap on defense spending that was introduced by the sequester as a bargaining chip to prevent the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, DACA, or a version of it from concluding in March.
‘You cannot deport 800,000 families. That is not American, and we are not going to let any Democrat continue to do that, especially someone who’s supposed to be in leadership,’ the member said.
Illegal residents who came to the U.S. as youth will be stripped of their protection in March, according to a mandate from President Donald Trump’s administration.
The executive action allowing them to stay this long was unconstitutional, the Trump government has said.
‘We understand the anxiety of the Hispanic caucus and share their anguish on this issue. We’re going to do everything we can to get the Dream Act done,’ Schumer said in a statement provided to the post after the argument.
Gutierrez suggested cooler heads had prevailed in a tweet that said: ‘This fight continues in January & I think Dems are on same page now.’
Trump has said the Dreamers can stay in the U.S. as long as he get his border wall and an immigration overhaul that eliminates the visa lottery system.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week that he’d bring legislation that achieves those goals to the floor if the two sides can broker a deal by the end of next month.
‘Yeah, not gonna happen,’ the person who spoke to DailyMail.com said. ‘We could litigate this in the election year, but we’re not going to create a new migration sytstem because Donald Trump created a fake emergency using Republican attorneys general or his so-called Sophie’s Choice where he had to somehow revoke DACA.’