Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said at a town hall event in Chantilly, VA on Monday that women will be raped and others may die or be injured if Congress does not grant amnesty to America’s illegal immigrants.

Gutierrez said that if the Senate’s immigration reform bill, or legislation similar to it, does not pass into law soon, rape and death will happen as a result.

“What we need to understand is today, someone is going to die in that desert trying to return to their families; women and men are going to die in that desert,” Gutierrez said in the video, captured by C-SPAN (beginning at ~47:12). “Someone’s going to lose a finger, a hand, an eye, a life today because an unscrupulous employer is going to put them in harm’s way. Someone’s going to die.”

He continued, “There’s a woman that’s going to be raped in a field somewhere in America today because she has no rights in this country, and we need to end that.”

Gutierrez also entreated his audience to think of the children: “There are children who are going to cry and there are marriages that are going to be destroyed because someone is going to be deported, and there are going to be children that are going to be left orphaned in this country.”

“For all of those reasons, we would accept that [the Senate’s bill],” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez has led the House Democratic Party’s efforts to push for amnesty.