Daca Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was 4 years ago that President Barack Obama announced a new program through an Executive Action. It was called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. This was an action by the President which I had asked him to consider. I had written a letter with Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and later with another 21 Senators, asking President Obama to consider the creation of this program because many of us believed that it was the right thing to do and the fair thing to do.
It was 15 years ago that I introduced the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act was really a response to a constituent case in my home State of Illinois. A young woman, Korean, had been brought to this country at the age of 2, came in on a visitor's visa, and when the visa expired, she and her mother and the rest of the family stayed. The papers were filed for everyone in the family but her. Now she was here in the United States, undocumented and illegal at the age of about 18. She wanted to go on to college. She had a promising music career ahead of her. But under American law as written--and still written--it was very clear that she didn't belong in the United States and that she had to leave for 10 years and petition to come back.
It seemed fundamentally unfair that a young person brought in at the age of 2 would face that sort of onerous responsibility and have to leave America, so I introduced the DREAM Act. If you were brought here under the age of 16, finished high school, had no serious criminal record, and you were prepared to go to college, enlist in the military, we would put you on the path to citizenship. It was that simple.
That was 15 years ago. That measure has been passed in the House, it has been passed in the Senate, but it has never passed in both Chambers in the same year, so it is still a bill waiting to become law. Yet there are 2.5 to 3 million young people who could qualify under the DREAM Act. So we wrote to President Obama and said ``Could you give these young people some protection from deportation if they were brought here under the conditions of the DREAM Act,'' and 4 years ago he said yes. He created the DACA Program. The signup was to start in August of that same year, 4 years ago, and I joined with Congressman Luis Gutierrez in offering a signup day at Navy Pier in Chicago. We had volunteer immigration lawyers come in to help these young people fill out their forms so they could qualify to stay in the United States for a few years, not be deported, and pay their fee and be here and have a future. We didn't know if 200 would show. We were worried when we heard it might be 300. In the end, there were thousands who came signing up. Many of them waited in line all night with their parents. This was their first chance to stay in America legally.
It was an amazing day, one of the most rewarding days of my public career, to see these young people so anxious to be part of America's future to sign up under this program. That was 4 years ago that President Obama created it. He thought--and I think wisely--that if these young people are a part of America's future, what about their parents? What if in the same household there is a father or mother undocumented? If they have no serious criminal issues, if they are prepared to pay the fee, if they will pay their taxes, if they will sign up with the government, shouldn't they be allowed to stay in America at least on a temporary, renewable basis? That led to the DAPA Program--DACA for the children, DAPA for the parents, created by Executive order by the President.
Well, that Executive order has been challenged in Court, across the street in the Supreme Court. In a few weeks, I expect it will be resolved, and I believe the President's position will be sustained. He has said it is his Executive responsibility to decide priorities in deportation. He wants to deport felons, not families, and he wants to make sure young people have a chance.
The President is doing what every other President has done in both political parties. He has been challenged by Republican Governors in a handful of States, and those challenges have suggested that these young people and their parents should be deported. In fact, there is a Presidential candidate on the Republican side, the presumptive nominee, Mr. Trump, who has called for the deportation of these people--the deportation of people whom you are going to meet every single day. They are your neighbors. They are the people who wait on you in the store. They may be working in a nursing home caring for your parent. They might be sitting next to you in church.
The Trump position--and those of the more radical wing of the Republican Party--is that they should be asked to leave America and deported. To me, that is unwise and unfair. These people should be given a chance to earn their way to legalization and citizenship, to pay their taxes, pay their fees, go through a background check to make sure they are no threat to our country, and be allowed to continue and stay and live in the United States.
Well, the challenges to DACA, the program for the original DREAMers, have reached the point where one judge in Texas, Andrew Hanen, a district court judge, hearing the case challenging DACA, ordered the Justice Department to turn over the details on 108,000 of these DREAMers who received 3-year DACA permits, including their contact information. Judge Hanen indicated this information could be provided to the Republican Governors who filed the lawsuit. DREAMers are understandably very nervous about this personal information being turned over to Republican officials who made clear they want to deport these young people back to countries where they haven't lived since they were children. Thankfully, Judge Hanen's order to turn over this information has been put on hold while we await the Supreme Court's decision.
Even if the Supreme Court upholds President Obama's actions in creating DACA and DAPA, consider the possibility of Donald Trump as the next President. Mr. Trump has referred to Hispanic immigrants in the most offensive terms. He has called them ``killers'' and ``rapists.'' Mr. Trump has pledged that if he is elected President, he will eliminate DACA and DAPA and deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in this country.
Over the years, I have come to the floor to tell the individual stories of these DREAMers, the young immigrant students who grew up in this country. I want to put a face on the people Donald Trump would deport. I want people who are following this debate to meet the young people who they believe have no right to be in the United States and have no future in this country and should be asked to leave--in fact, forced to leave. I want to show America who these people are. Let's not talk about these undocumented people. Let's talk about the individual who is involved and the families who are involved.
This photo is Lisette Diaz. Lisette was brought to America when she was 6 years old from Chile. She grew up in Long Island, NY, and was a pretty good student--in fact, excellent. In high school, she won the AP Scholar with Distinction Award and was a member of the National Honor Society. She made the high honor roll because she had an overall average grade above 95 percent. I wish I could say the same for my high school career. Lisette was involved in extracurricular activities, including soccer, the literary magazine, and the dance team.
Here is what she said about growing up in Long Island, NY:
I knew that being undocumented made me different from my [high school] classmates. But I couldn't help but feel like I belonged here. I recited the pledge of allegiance every day in school. I knew U.S. history better than Chilean history. I watched American television. The vast majority of my friends were American. I just really felt American.
Lisette went on to attend Harvard University, where she received numerous awards and participated in many extracurricular activities. She volunteered at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic, where she worked as an interpreter. Of course, because of her immigration status, Lisette wasn't eligible for any Federal financial assistance for college. Thanks to the DACA Program, which we are commemorating today, she has been able to work as a student supervisor at Harvard Kennedy School Library to help support herself and put herself through school. Just last month, Lisette graduated from Harvard with honors. Her dream--to become a lawyer and to work in public service.
Lisette Diaz is one story. One of the 730,000 who have successfully applied for this deferred action under President Obama's Executive order. Lisette is one of these undocumented people Donald Trump would deport and send away from America.
Mr. Trump and those who happen to be endorsing him don't have any use for young people like Lisette Diaz. They believe they should leave. They add nothing to this country, in their estimation. They are just wrong. Both Donald Trump and other Republicans have made their agenda clear. They want to shut down DACA and DAPA and deport hundreds of thousands of DREAMers and the parents of American children who may be undocumented. If they have their way, Lisette will be deported back to Chile, a country where she hasn't lived since she was 6 years old. Will America be a stronger country without her? Will we be a better country if someone of her extraordinary talent is gone? Will it make us any safer, any better, if she is deported, as Donald Trump has called for? The answer to most rational people is very clear.
I am hopeful the Supreme Court will uphold the President's immigration action. Then I hope the Republicans in Congress will reject Donald Trump's bigoted rhetoric and work with us to pass comprehensive reform immigration and fix our broken immigration system once and for all. There was a time, and it wasn't that long ago, when we passed comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. Senate. Fourteen Republicans joined with the Democrats to make this bipartisan measure at least a vehicle for us to finally address immigration reform in America. It was one of the better days in my service in the U.S. Senate. What happened to that bill after it passed with a bipartisan majority? It went to the House of Representatives, where it languished and died.
In 3 years, not a single piece of legislation has been brought forward on the issue of immigration reform. Everyone concedes our immigration system is broken. We know we have undocumented people in this country. Those who are dangerous should be deported immediately; those who are not should be given a chance. That is what the bill said--a chance to file their filing fee, to go through a criminal background check, to pay their taxes, to register with the government, and go to the back of the line and wait, many times waiting for 10 or 15 years for that chance to finally become a citizen of this country. That is what our bill said. I think it is fair, but the House of Representatives, under Republican leadership, would not bring it up. Sadly, this Presidential campaign has shown that many in the Republican Party are not only opposed to that legislation, they are opposed to the concept of immigration. They are opposed to the notion that people can come to this country and make a difference.
Of the Fortune 500 companies in this country, the biggest employers, the ones that have had the most impact on our economy--a study found that 90 were started by immigrants to the United States, including some of the biggest and the most important.
This is a nation of immigrants. I have said before, and I will again, I am proud to stand here as a first-generation American. My mother was an immigrant to this country. Thank goodness my grandparents had the courage to get up and leave Lithuania and come to the United States of America. Because of that, I stand here today. That is my story. That is my family's story. It is America's story, and those who reject that history of this country and that heritage of this country are rejecting our birthright and our identity as the United States of America.
This campaign by Donald Trump against immigrants--building walls and all the hateful things he said--is going to be remembered by a lot of people for a long time. It is going to be transformational as people identify where they think America's future will be. I don't believe it is going to be part of the hatred and fear that is being peddled by Mr. Trump and others who support him.
We are a hopeful, positive nation. When we come together, our diversity is our strength. It is our unity. It is what distinguishes us in the world.
Today, on the fourth anniversary of the President's Executive order for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, I thank the President again for his leadership. I hope the Supreme Court decision, in a few weeks, will chart a path for us to open this so we can start moving through the President's leadership toward a goal which we started in the Senate and unfortunately which died in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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