Congressman Supports Immigrant Facing Possible Deportation
O'BRIEN: A traffic stop threatens to rip a family apart and is heating up the immigration debate. The guy at the middle of this is a guy named Gabino Sanchez. There's a photo of him from the "Post Courier." He's 27 years old. He was pulled over for speeding in the state of South Carolina. Under a new South Carolina immigration law, the officer detained him after learning he did not have a driver's license. Now Sanchez faces deportation. He has been in the country for 13 years. The father of two children that are both U.S. citizens. The case is a challenge to the president's deportation policy, which is supposed to be targeting violent criminals and not separate families. The Illinois Democratic Congressman, Luis Gutierrez, is backing Sanchez, taking up his fight, traveling to northern California for a hearing tomorrow. He joins us this morning. It's nice to see you, sir. Thank you for talking to us. You're a Congressman from Illinois. Why are you involved in a case that really takes place in South Carolina?</s>REP. LUIS GUTIERREZ, (D), ILLINOIS: Because it affects the policy nationally. I have in my own district thousands of families that wake up each day to work really hard, and our system is broken. I have soldiers that have been ordered to go to Afghanistan who live in my congressional district whose wives are under orders of deportation. It's a national policy, Soledad. So I think, when I look Gabino and the case -- it's going to be in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's where the immigration hearing is going to take place tomorrow at 1:00. I'll have religious leaders, community leaders, his family, his friends, stand up for him because, as you suggested earlier, the Obama administration says we want to make a change. We want to shift. We want to shift our focus to violent criminals, to gang bangers, to drug dealers, rapists, murderers, and not people like this man --</s>O'BRIEN: OK, but --</s>GUTIERREZ: -- who came here when he was 15 years old.</s>O'BRIEN: But he also -- no one is arguing the point that he ran a red light. He was speeding when he ran that red light. When they stopped him, it turned out he didn't have a driver's license. Plenty of people would say -- and he's not in the country with documents, all those things, he should be gone.</s>GUTIERREZ: Well, he didn't run a red light. He was given a ticket for one thing, and that was driving without a driver's license. And he was pulled over as he was pulling into the home that he owns, Soledad. Here's somebody undocumented, coming to this country, has two American citizen children. As we try to prioritize our limited resources to go after bad people in our society that do harm, we should do. And that's what Barack Obama's administration said it was going to do. It was going to prioritize that. So tomorrow, we have this wonderful opportunity to see a young man who came here when he was 15, eligible under Dream Act standards, who came here when he was 15 and now has two American citizen children. I want to share this, Soledad. There are five million American citizen children whose parents are undocumented in this country. We need to have a policy that allows American citizen children to have parents to raise them. I think that as American --</s>O'BRIEN: I'm sorry for interrupting. What do you think the chances are that he's going to be able to stay? And what do you think the implications are, because I know eventually what you're trying to do is to target the Obama administration's deportation policy?</s>GUTIERREZ: Well, what we want to do is -- the deportation policy clearly enunciated by this administration in August of last year said, if you have American citizen children and you haven't violated any -- you haven't committed any felonies, which clearly Gabino Sanchez has not. It's -- driving without a driver's license. The last one was immediately outside his trailer park home in South Carolina. He's not a violent criminal. We should allow him to raise his children. And if you follow the policies as set out by the administration, otherwise what you're saying is undocumented workers in this country under the new policy and under the new guidelines for driving without a driver's license is equal to selling drugs, is equal to murder and mayhem in our community. It's not, Soledad.</s>O'BRIEN: What do you think your chances are? As you know, the administration has deported more than a million immigrants?</s>GUTIERREZ: I think they're good. We're going to take -- we're going to take -- here's what we're going to do, Soledad. We're going to take the document issued by Homeland Security and we're going to challenge them to do the right thing. When we sat down with the president, I and others sat down with the president, I think it is really clear that he wants to distinguish between those in this country causing harm and those that are kind of trapped in a broken immigration system, attempting to raise their American citizen children, and to have a viable future here in this country.</s>O'BRIEN: Congressman Luis Gutierrez is the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force. We'll follow this case to see what happens to him and if he is actually, at the end, allowed to stay in the country or is deported. Thank you for your time this morning, sir. Appreciate it.</s>GUTIERREZ: Pleasure. Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, U.S. soldiers and citizens are now on alert overseas for revenge attacks after it appears one soldier has gone on a bloody rampage in Afghanistan. We'll talk to Jim Frederick of "Time" magazine who wrote all about how to stop soldiers from becoming murderers. And then the people behind the viral "Kony 2012" videotape are expecting to release another video today, responding to critics who've question the group's management and the group's motives. You're watching STARTING POINT. We're back in just a moment.