Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said Monday that he knows that President Obama’s executive action on immigration is “going to be big.”
On MSNBC, host Alex Wagner asked Gutierrez if the White House had reached out to him about its plan.
“Let me say this, not getting into the specific,” Gutierrez replied. “It’s going to be big. It’s going to be bold.”
Wagner later followed up on this comment, saying, “That would suggest the White House has been in touch with you about this.”
“I know that it’s going to be big and it’s going to be bold,” Gutierrez, a leading proponent of immigration reform, replied. “I don’t want to say more than that. I’ve been, as you know, we’ve spoken before. I said it was going to be at least five million before. And it seems that that’s going to be a number that we’re looking at. Look, I cannot tell you any more than that.”
The New York Times reported last week that Obama’s plan would protect up to five million people from deportation.
Gutierrez said the plan would have multiple parts.
“It’s going to include millions of people,” he said. “It’s going to have various parts. I mean we have an agricultural industry. You know, a lot of times the B roll shows the people working in the fields doing that hard, back-breaking work. It’s going to have a high tech component. It’s going to have a component that’s going to keep children together with their moms and their dads.”
Republicans have issued strong warnings against executive action by Obama. Gutierrez, on the other hand, has strong praise.
“That’s the guy we all voted for,” he said of Obama. “And we’re excited about the prospects, not the political prospects, but we’re excited about the prospects of families.”