Immigration Reform
Floor Speech
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Mr. President, on another topic, you can't serve in the Senate without some level of patience. It takes forever to get things done around here--that is, the big things.
Fifteen years ago, I introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. That was 15 years ago, the year 2000. What were we going to do with these young people who came to the United States--brought here as babies, infants, toddlers, children--when they finished high school and were looking to the future? The DREAM Act said that if they have no serious criminal issues, if they have finished school, we will give them a chance--a chance to work their way toward legal status and citizenship.
I introduced that bill 15 years ago. It has had its ups and downs. At times it has passed in the House; other times it has passed in the Senate. We have never been able to align those two bodies to pass the bill at the same time.
It was June 27, 2013--almost 2 1/2 years ago--when it last passed in the Senate. It was part of comprehensive immigration reform. Sixty-eight Senators voted for that bill--14 Republicans and 54 Democrats. It was a bipartisan bill, comprehensive immigration reform.
We took the bill and sent it to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and they refused to call the bill or even debate it on the floor of the House of Representatives. It was frustrating. A group of us had worked for months to put that bill together. The House would not even consider it, wouldn't even debate it, didn't offer an alternative. They were silent. Virtually all of them were silent but not every one of them.
This was a historic meeting in the city of Chicago. These two gentlemen are my friends, one my colleague from Illinois, Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, and the other the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congressman Paul Ryan from Janesville, WI. They appeared at a famous setting in Chicago, the City Club, and talked about immigration. Let me read what Congressman Paul Ryan said as a visitor joining Congressman Gutiérrez in 2013:
We all must acknowledge that we have an immigration system that's broken. It is not serving our interest as a nation. Our broken immigration system does not serve our national security interests. Our broken immigration system does not serve our economic security interests. Our broken immigration system does not serve our family interests.
Congressman Ryan went on to say:
And so, when Republicans and Democrats look at this situation and see something that's broken, we need to fix it. We have to offer people a path to earned legalization. We have to invite people to come out of the shadows.
That was an extraordinary statement. It was heralded not just in Chicago but around the country as a statement that a leader would make trying to lead his party into a positive view toward immigration reform. It was a statement made by Congressman Paul Ryan in the year 2013. I applauded it, praised it. Many of us did.
But now we have another statement by the new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. He has basically said that the Republicans are going to do nothing--nothing on immigration. He says he can't trust the President, and as long as he can't trust the President, he is going to do nothing as the new Republican leader of the House. So he is going to consider absolutely no legislation to fix our broken immigration system.
Why did President Obama take the actions that he did, creating a program known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA? It was the President's response to the failure of Republican leaders in the House to even consider the issue of immigration.
What is DACA? DACA is a program created by Executive order that gives to these young people who qualified as DREAMers temporary status in the United States so they cannot be deported. They have to come forward, submit themselves for a criminal background check, pay a fee, and be monitored. If they should get in trouble, commit a crime, they are gone, they are deported. So far, 700,000 of these young people have come forward as part of the DACA Program.
The House Republicans have tried to stop the program, eliminate the program. I assume that, like some candidates for President, they want to deport all these young people. That is unfortunate because many of these young people who now have at least temporary protection by DACA are doing some absolutely extraordinary things. I would like to talk about one of them this evening.
This young lady's name is Maricela Aguilar. She is from Speaker Ryan's home State of Wisconsin. In 1995, when Maricela was 3 years old, her mother brought her to the United States to give her a better life. Maricela's family settled in Milwaukee, WI. She worked hard and excelled in school. During high school, Maricela was on the honor roll, was a member of the National Honor Society, and was captain of the cross-country team. At the same time, she was active in her community; she was a volunteer at a homeless shelter.
When it came time to apply for colleges, she wanted to stay close to her family. She wanted to stay in Speaker Ryan's home State of Wisconsin. She applied to a lot of schools. She was offered a full tuition scholarship to Marquette University in Milwaukee. That is an extraordinary school. My son went there, so I am partial, but it is an extraordinary school because it gave her a chance.
Keep in mind that this young lady, because she is undocumented, doesn't qualify for any government assistance--none. Sacrifices had to be made by her family and others to help her go to Marquette. She went there. She was on the dean's list, double major--political science and English literature. She worked part time as a waitress to make ends meet to pay for her college expenses. She became involved in advocating for immigration reform.
In 2010 Maricela was here in the Senate Gallery along with hundreds of other DREAMers when the Senate failed to pass the DREAM Act due to a Republican filibuster. We got a majority of votes; we couldn't get 60.
I met with Maricela in 2011 when she came to Washington to talk about her concerns about DREAMers just like herself who faced deportation.
In 2012 Maricela graduated with honors, in the top 10 percent of her graduating class at Marquette in Milwaukee, WI.
Later that year President Obama created the deferred action plan that gave her and hundreds of thousands of others a chance to stay and not be deported. She was able to apply and go to graduate school at Brandeis University in Boston. She continues to work on immigration reform and is a leader of the Student Immigration Movement of Massachusetts.
She is going to return to Milwaukee when she graduates, she promises. She wants to become a public school teacher so she can use her education to help young people in the city where she grew up. She is a loyal Wisconsinite, a loyal member of the Milwaukee community.
I would say to Speaker Ryan: She wants to be a part of your State for the rest of her life.
Maricela and other DREAMers have so much to give America. Can we use more public school teachers with her talent? Of course we can. But Speaker Ryan and other Republican leaders in Congress have made their agenda clear: They want to shut down this program and tell Maricela she can't stay to continue her education. They want to deport her to her country, which she hasn't been to since she was 3 years old and has no memory of it. She would be deported to Mexico, a place she may have experienced as a toddler but can't even remember.
Will America be a stronger country, will Wisconsin be a better State, will Milwaukee be a better city if Maricela is now told to leave after she has obtained her bachelor's degree and is working on her graduate degree? I think the answer is clear: If she stays, we will all be better for it and she will be better for it.
Instead of deporting DREAMers like Maricela, Speaker Paul Ryan should support DACA and work with the Democrats to pass comprehensive immigration reform to fix our broken immigration system.
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