Pro-immigrant Rep. Luis Gutierrez didn't get, or expect, a state dinner invite
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By Jason Horowitz
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Washington Post


Luis Gutierrez wasn't surprised that the Obama administration left him off the guest list for Wednesday's state dinner to honor the Mexican president.


"I didn't expect an invitation," said Gutierrez, an Illinois congressman and chair of the Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force.


After all, Gutierrez's last White House visit, on May 3, did not go so well. He showed up wearing a white T-shirt with red letters that read: "ARREST ME NOT MY FRIENDS." The Park Police obliged.


Officers handcuffed Gutierrez, along with the immigrant advocates who had gathered with him across from the White House. They had come to protest a strict new Arizona law as well as the administration's overall lack of progress on the immigration issue.


The dinner to honor President Felipe Calderón falls in the middle of a furious debate over immigration, with emotional issues like border security, drug trafficking, civil rights and xenophobia mixing uncomfortably with giddy welcoming for Salma Hayek and Eva Longoria Parker or the mogul Carlos Slim -- all reportedly on the guest list. Some of the noisiest advocates and agitators for immigration reform in Congress will be looking in from the outside, hoping that the American and Mexican presidents seize the opportunity to push for progress on the issue...link to complete article