Transcript of Pelosi Press Conference on Trump’s Dangerous Immigration and Refugee Executive Actions

Leader Pelosi's Opening Remarks:

"...Bigotry, the misogyny, the xenophobia, the anti-immigrant sentiment, remembering that America has been enriched by our immigrant community – for our whole history.  And if any immigrant who comes to America with hopes, dreams and aspirations to make the future better for their families, honors the vision of our founders about making the future better.  So, all of those immigrants make America more American.  The diversity that we have is a strength in our country.

"So, we were blessed with input as to the fear that is being instilled in certain communities and that fear, I'm afraid, is justified, in terms of the action of the President of the United States.

"We have not seen his revised ban for his Muslim ban, but we are seeing his deportation orders, and they are cause for great concern.  Since we met, just moments ago, we have learned that the President, the Trump Administration is asking intel officials at the Department of Homeland Security to justify the travel ban.  Our Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff of California said in doing so, the Administration 'risks a dangerous politicization' of intel that misleads the public and the courts.  If the President wants an objective analysis, he should ask the Intelligence Community to unbiased assessment – but not an assessment that has a result – now you can have the intelligence to back up my notion that I have.  They are on very dangerous security ground.

"And they have said that this is about protecting the American people.  Well, we know from our military and our diplomats, the actions of the President – the Muslim ban, the deportations and the rest are not making America safe.  In fact, they are making America less safe.

"And so, with that, again, we have so many folks here.  I'm sure that they would be happy to answer any specific questions you may have as it pertains to their communities.  But, in terms of what I'm talking about here, I'm pleased to take any questions you have."

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Q:  So the President earlier this morning said that the deportation effort is going to be a military effort.  And then, about three or four hours later, John Kelly, his Homeland Security Secretary said, ‘We will not be enlisting the military in this effort.  And this will not be a mass deportation.'  Again, he said, ‘This will not be a mass deportation.' 

What are we supposed to believe?  And what impact does that have on people who are concerned about being thrown out of the country?

Leader Pelosi.  Again, I want to respect the associations and affiliations that our guests here have.  But, speaking for myself and not tainting them with any enthusiasm I may have about this subject, the President is a fear-monger.  And, he's a notion-monger.  What he put out was a notion, which was rolled back by General Kelly.  So, you hear this regularly from him.  He puts something out there, and then, people who know better, who know the subject, will say, ‘No, that's not going to happen.'  But, he is throwing red meat to a certain constituency when he gives the impression that he'd be willing to use military – that would be so contrary to who we are as a country.  So, thank God General Kelly rolled that back.

Q:  Leader Pelosi, what assurances have you given the people here about what they can expect in the few weeks, months and the people they represent from somebody from Washington?

Leader Pelosi.  What I said to them is what Abraham Lincoln said to us, ‘Public sentiment is everything.'  And what we need to do is to have them contact their friends in Republican districts to call their Members of Congress.  Nothing is more eloquent to a Member of Congress than the voice of his own or her own [constituents].

So, our constituents calling into another district's Member – it doesn't matter.  What they're hearing from their bosses, all these San Franciscans – they're all from San Francisco.  They're my bosses – or at least, 75 or 80 percent of the city, they're my bosses.  And I listen to what they say.  Members of Congress listen to their own constituents.

So, I'm talking to them – Lincoln went on to say, ‘With public sentiment, you can accomplish almost anything.  Without it, almost nothing.'  So, we have to, they have to hear, especially from like faith-based organizations and immigrant right organizations, whose organized purpose is to do the right thing for our communities.  And that should be respected by the Members of Congress.  Only then, will we be able to stop them from they are doing.

But, in addition to that, it's really important – and I learned a lot from listening to the completely current in real time, as to experience their having – with the people they work with, the constituencies they serve.  And so that information in real time strengthens our hand to talk about this.  Their validation of experience is not my here-and-now story in saying what I would say to other people: the plural of anecdote is not data.  But the experience that people have is something that strengthens our hand, informs us to communicate to the Administration the impact – the negative impact – the ill-informed policy is having.

So, the President is trying to use the Intelligence Community to arrive at a conclusion.  This is reverse of the way it is supposed to happen.  To arrive at a conclusion – and what is wrong with that is that that's not who we are as a country.  It undermines the greatness of America.  Yes, sir.

Q:  I'm an immigrant, I'm a Mexican, and I'm a gay man.  And my question for you is: how is the Democratic Party going to stop – or do you have any plan to stop all of this harassment, especially on Mexicans and gay people?  And as an immigrant, there is a lot of fear.  There are millions and millions of people like me – that I'm afraid to be here, that I'm afraid to go out, that I'm afraid to talk.  And on top of that, I'm a member of the media – I'm part of the ‘enemy' as well.  So I have a lot of – as you see me as a single man here, I have a lot of things that this so-called President hates [about] me.

Leader Pelosi.  Well, I think that while you're asking a question from the media, you are sharing your story with us.  And I thank you for your courage in doing that.  It's not an individual story – there are many people who share your experience.  So, thank you for speaking out for them.

Our history in the Democratic Party is to oppose what you just described, and I use as an example with the help of Rita Semel my friend in the Interfaith Council, Mike Pappas who is here.  We worked together to pass the hate crimes legislation in Congress and that hate crimes bill was fully inclusive – it included LGBT and when I say "T", I mean "T" because transgender was a very important part of that.  People said to me if you take out transgender you could pass this in a minute, and I said, "Well I'm not taking out transgender in a million years because that's a very vulnerable population and we have to deal with that." We've always been fighting that fight, and we've succeeded with that.

Just yesterday, this Administration reversed the guidance of the Obama Administration on how transgender children would be respected in schools – transgender children. There is fear factor here that is large, but we all as a country have to fight this.  I take pride of the leadership the Democratic Party has played in all of this but clearly elections have consequences.

What we have to do is make sure in elections, and not to be political, but in elections, we must elect people who share our view or that the people who win share our views.  That the message is clear from the constituency, is broader than those of us who show up at meetings but public sentiment is where we would like to hold all of our elected officials to be whether they're Democrats or Republicans, when it comes to respecting the dignity and worth of people.

Q: The Santa Cruz Police Chief and Mayor said that they feel that Homeland Security was not honest with them in a gang operation that turned out to be an immigration raid.  So are you worried about this happening, here in California, again and again, and how can this be stopped?

Leader Pelosi.  Yes, I am worried about it and I would like to invite some of our colleagues and friends here to speak to it.  I think they may have been concerned and perhaps they were surprised, but I think they should have been prepared for this because the administration has made it very clear – we had thought that prosecutorial discretion meant that you only sought people who had only broken the law in a serious way.  Not a broken taillight or a traffic violation but has serious reason to be deported.  Instead they used status as a violation of the law, that's not what prosecutorial discretion is about, that's not discretion that's just everybody.

We have many examples, and you've mentioned what the view is of the Santa Cruz authorities, but many examples of the ICE people going into a place to seek out someone who may have broken a law in one way or another and then questioning other people in the place where they are, and that's not right.  And those people may have papers but they hadn't broken the law but they were with somebody who had.

That's not prosecutorial discretion, that's taking it to a different place, and what that says is – millions of people in our country are exposed to that version of the story and it's just wrong, it's just plain wrong.  That's something we have to fight, because that goes beyond any desire on the part of the American people to say these people should be deported – 11 million people.  They say it's 8 million people if they define it as they came in legally but you overstayed, well that might not count but right now we don't see that exception.  We see 8 million people exposed.

We're waiting to see what they'll do about DACA, the DREAMERs, that's in the hundreds of thousands that could be protected but we don't have that confidence just yet. Any comments from our folks here?

Mike Pappas. It's not just in Santa Cruz, in January 26 here in San Francisco, four officers armed entered a childcare center and traumatized the staff as well as the children without any subpoenas, without any warrants, looking for someone and so that is happening here in San Francisco as well.

Aarti Kohli. Many of us are supporting legislation, SB 54, the California Values Act, and SB 41, both of those bills are about separating federal enforcement from local enforcement.  If you hear in these stories a lot of times local police are not involved.  The idea there is that in California we would make it very clear that it is not that job of local police to support federal immigration enforcement.  So I would encourage you all to look at that legislation, it's moving through the California legislature right now.

Leader Pelosi. And by the way, many in local police forces do not want to become immigration officers and many will attest that in our sanctuary cities situation, it makes the people of San Francisco safer, because it gives an opportunity for people who may have witnessed a crime to come forward and to solve the crime.  Rather than prevented from doing that, because they would risk being without papers. Some of what the administration is doing makes it even harsher.

Lariza Dugan-Cuadra. I think it's also important to send the message to our community that in many localities, San Francisco being one of the leaders in the nation, our local communities are working with our governments and everyone standing here, so we make sure people know their rights because no matter what your status is you still have rights in this country.  We're working to create systems of protection with police.  We know that regardless of what this President may say, our fight is local and we're getting ready to do so.