An advisor for Mitt Romney blamed the Democrats Sunday for the DREAM Act’s defeat in Congress, ThinkProgress reports.

Former commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the Obama administration “played with Hispanics” during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Nation, the same program in which Romney senior advisor Ed Gillespie refused to say whether the presumptive Republican candidate would rescind Obama’s recent decision to suspend deportations for thousands of young immigrants.

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“That bill had things in there that couldn’t get bipartisan support” Gutierrez said. “Republicans said don’t ram that bill now, we’re in the middle of an election year and you did it anyway knowing that it wouldn’t pass. But it didn’t matter, you made the promise, you got the Hispanic vote, and that has been the pattern. This administration has played with Hispanics.

The DREAM Act, which would have enabled immigrants who were brought into the country before turning 16 to earn citizenship by either attending college or serving in the military, was defeated in the Senate two years ago after a Republican filibuster.

Watch video of Gutierrez’s statements, posted on June 24 by ThinkProgress, below:

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