Tsunami Warning, Education, and Research Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. President, let me say at the outset that I took the floor last week and said a few words in tribute and friendship to my colleague, Senator Kirk. I am glad to hear the majority leader's statement this morning. It was spot-on, and it captured his public spirit, as well as his personal strength, that has brought him to this moment in history. I have been honored to serve with him for the last 6 years.
I would say to my colleague Senator Coats from Indiana: We served together in the House, in the Senate, and I actually visited him when he was an ambassador representing the United States in Germany. It is an amazing public career on his part, and I wish him the very best for whatever the future holds for him.
DACA
Mr. President, I wish to tell a story about an extraordinary young woman whom some of you may know. Her name is Laura Alvarado. When she was 8 years old, Laura was brought to the United States from Mexico.
She grew up in Chicago in my home State of Illinois.
In high school, she was an extraordinary student and was involved in extracurricular and volunteer activities. She was a member of the National Honor Society. She played soccer, tennis, basketball, and was a member of student government, the school newspaper, the chess club, the yearbook club, and many more. She decided to go to Northeastern Illinois University. She worked two jobs while she was going to school because she didn't qualify for any Federal assistance to go to college.
In 2006, she graduated with honors from Northeastern. Her major was justice studies. But then she was stuck again. Her ambition in life was to become a lawyer, but she couldn't pursue her dream. It took her 6 years. In 2012, President Obama established DACA, an Executive action which said to Laura and thousands just like her: You are in a special category. You were undocumented in America, but you were brought here as a child. You didn't make the decision to come to this country; your family did. So we are going to give young people like Laura a chance, on a temporary basis, if they will pay a filing fee of almost $500, submit themselves to a criminal background check to make certain they are no threat to anyone in this country, we will give them a 2-year status where they cannot be deported and they can work in America.
Laura applied. There were people who were cautioning her: Be careful. If you identify yourself as undocumented to this government, somebody might use it against you someday. But Laura, who aspired to be a lawyer, decided to follow the law, register, pay her fee, go through the background check, and try to get the status of DACA. She received it. And because of it, she was allowed to apply and be accepted at Southern Illinois University School of Law at Carbondale.
In law school, she was an outstanding student again. She won the moot court competition. She was selected for the Order of Barristers, a legal honor society.
This spring, 10 years after she graduated from college, Laura received her law degree. Over the summer she passed her bar exam, and just last month she received her Illinois law license, which she is holding here proudly.
Laura never gave up on her dream of becoming a lawyer, but it is a dream that never would have happened were it not for President Obama's Executive action, the Executive action that didn't give her a free pass to law school--just the opposite. It said to her: If you are accepted into law school, the government will not pay you a penny to help with your education. You have to go out and work for it. She did.
Now we face a question with a new President coming in who says he wants to abolish the DACA that made Laura eligible to go to law school.
He wants to abolish the status where these young people, brought as babies, toddlers, into this country are not subject to deportation and can work for a living. If that is abolished, then Laura, despite all of her hard work, all of her education, all of her achievements in life, faces deportation from this country.
Laura said she wants to use her law degree to help people who don't have a fighting chance without lawyers who are more focused on service than on money. We are better if Laura is here as a lawyer practicing in America. We are certainly better in Illinois to have someone with a law license willing to give back to our State.
Now the choice is up to Congress. Are we going to step in and give Laura the chance she asked for to prove herself again as she has so many times in her young life? I am glad to say that Lindsey Graham, the Senator from South Carolina, and I are joining in an effort to draw up legislation to achieve that goal and at least to give these DACA- eligibles a temporary reprieve so that if there is an elimination of this Executive action, we don't eliminate the protection that keeps them here in the United States and where they cannot be deported and they have a chance to work. That is something we need to do--not just for Laura but for 744,000 other young people as well who grew up in this country and just deserve a chance to make this a better nation.
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