Immigration

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, like the majority of Americans who supported the Democratic candidate for President in the most recent election, I was disappointed by the results. But last Wednesday, I publicly congratulated President-Elect Donald Trump. I believe the bedrock principle of America is that we select our leaders and then come together as a country to try to find common ground and move forward.

On election night, the President-elect said:

"Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across the Nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people."

I agree with the President-elect's statement. During the campaign, President-Elect Donald Trump used incendiary and offensive language about immigrants and immigration. I condemned those remarks at the time. I remain concerned about their impact on our Nation.

But all Americans have an obligation to give this incoming President a chance. I am hopeful that he will keep his promise of election night to bind the wounds of division, to bring our Nation together. If he does, I look for opportunities where we can work together. As a first step in bringing our Nation together, I hope Mr. Trump will change his rhetoric and his approach to immigration.

As the President-elect knows, we are a nation of immigrants, and immigration makes us stronger. Like me, Mr. Trump is the son of an immigrant. When Mr. Trump takes the oath of office in January, the United States will have a First Lady who is an immigrant for only the second time in our history and for the first time since 1801 when President John Quincy Adam's wife, Louisa Catherine Adams, was the First Lady of the United States.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump pledged to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants, but in an interview with ``60 Minutes,'' he recently said he wanted to focus on deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. He acknowledged that millions of undocumented immigrants are ``terrific people.''

I wish to speak for a few moments about some of those terrific people. These words are important to me. I listened to them carefully.

It was 15 years ago when I introduced a bill known as the DREAM Act. My cosponsor at that time was Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. This bipartisan bill recognized the fact that many of the undocumented in America were brought here as children. They didn't make the family decision to get in the car, to head for America--adults did. Some of them were only infants. But they came to this country, and they have lived in this country since. They go to school in America. They stand and pledge allegiance in the classroom to the only flag they have ever known. They speak English, and they believe their future is in this country.

These were the DREAMers, and our bill said: Give them a chance. If they finish school and they have no serious criminal record, give them a chance to earn their way to legalization and citizenship.

Well, for 15 years this bill has been pending. Sometimes, it passes the Senate. Sometimes, it passed the House. It never quite passed both Chambers in the same year, and so it is still an aspiration and not legislation.

It was 6 years ago when I wrote a letter to the President, President Obama, joined by Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican from Indiana. On a bipartisan basis, we asked the President of the United States to protect these young DREAMers who grew up in America from deportation.

These kids deserve a chance. We have invested in them. We have given them a good education in American schools, and it makes no sense to squander their talents by deporting them to countries they barely know.

The President, President Obama, responded. He established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA. DACA provides temporary, renewable, legal status to immigrant students who arrive in the United States as children. Approximately 740,000 of these young people have come forward and signed up for DACA. DACA has allowed them a chance, without the fear of deportation, to contribute more fully to our country as soldiers, nurses, teachers, engineers, and police officers. DACA is based on the DREAM Act. It gives these undocumented students who grew up in this country a chance to earn their way toward legal status.
It is clearly legal. Like every President before him, President Obama has had the authority to set immigration policy, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Federal Government has broad authority in this area.

DACA is not just legal. It makes sense. The Department of Homeland Security only has enough funding to deport a small fraction of undocumented immigrants. So the President--our current President--and the President-elect say: Let's focus on those who might cause harm to America. I agree with them. That is just common sense.

But at the same time, President Obama has said: Why would we want to waste resources deporting young immigrant students who grew up in this country and are making a great contribution? During the campaign, President-Elect Trump pledged that he would end DACA. I hope that he will reconsider that position.

I have come to the floor over the last several years to tell the stories of these DREAMers. I can give speeches all day about who they are, but some of them have the courage to step up and really tell America who they are.
Today I wish to speak to you about one of them. His name is Oscar Cornejo, Jr. In the year 2000, when Oscar was only 5 years old, his family came to the United States from Mexico. Oscar grew up in Park City. It is a small, northern suburb of Chicago, in my home State of Illinois.

He was quite a student. In high school he was a member of the National Honor Society and an Illinois State scholar. He received several Advanced Placement awards and graduated high school magna cum laude. This is what Oscar said about his high school years:

"My parents always instilled in me the value of an education, which is one of the main reasons they decided to leave everything in Mexico and come to the United States. I dedicated myself solely to my education to honor the sacrifices my parents made."

It was because of those outstanding academic achievements in high school that Oscar was admitted to Dartmouth College, an Ivy League school in Hanover, NH. He is the first member of his family even to attend college.

Oscar has excelled at Dartmouth. During his freshman year, Oscar received the William S. Churchill prize for outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the college in the areas of ``fairness, respect for duty, and citizenship.''

Oscar serves on the student board that judges violations of the Dartmouth honor code. He cofounded and codirected the college's first immigrant rights organization, and now he is in his senior year at Dartmouth.
He wants to be a teacher. He has applied to graduate school at the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers at Phillips Academy. He wrote a letter to me and said:

"When I received my DACA, the threat of deportation had been lifted and I felt I could actually achieve my dreams. DACA has allowed me to work for the first time and the money I earn goes to support my education and my family."

Oscar and so many other DREAMers have so much to give to America. If we eliminate DACA, Oscar will lose his legal status. He will be subject to deportation at any moment, and he could be deported back to Mexico, a country where he hasn't lived for 15 years.

Will America be a stronger country if we lose Oscar Cornejo or if he stays here and becomes a teacher? I think the answer is very clear.

I hope that President-Elect Trump will consider that this young man is in a different category than someone who came into this country and committed a serious crime. This is a young man who did just the opposite. He led a good life. He was successful in high school. He has gone to college without any Federal assistance whatsoever. He doesn't qualify for a penny, yet he has excelled and still, despite all these struggles, wants to give back to this Nation, the only country he has ever called home. Losing him would be a loss to America.

I appeal to the President-elect: Think long and hard about the future of this country. Realize that he and I--the President-elect and myself--as first-generation Americans, have to understand that it is immigration that has brought so much by way of diversity and talent to the great United States. We can't shut down DACA. That would be horrible. It would mean that 744,000 young people such as Oscar, protected from deportation, would wake up the next morning wondering if that knock on the door was the last they would hear as a resident of America. I am going to fight for Oscar and for the 744,000 who qualify for DACA and for the DREAMers like them who came here as children and simply asked for a chance.

There is real division in the Senate, the House, and in the country when it comes to immigration. As I have told these stories on the floor--almost 100 of them now--I have noticed a number of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle say: That really is a different situation. This is a young child who should be given a chance. Now is the time for America--this Nation of immigrants--to heal our wounds that divided us during this election.

I hope and pray that the President-elect, by word and action, in the coming weeks and months will truly bring us together.

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