DACA

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly about the news this week that the President is terminating the Executive action protecting DACA recipients--Dreamers as we know them--but also putting the burden on the shoulders of this body, the article I branch, to find an appropriate solution.

The President often said as a candidate--and even in his early days as President--that he understood some things about these youngsters. He called them incredible kids, and he also said they would be fine. He did not use that language often in talking about immigrants so those were positive phrases that led many to hope he would continue the DACA Program. Many in his administration wanted him to. Others in this body--this speaker wanted him to continue the program, but he announced he was terminating it in 6 months and asked Congress to step up.

I wanted to just tell you about a couple of youngsters I was with last week. I had a roundtable on DACA at Northern Virginia Community College, which is one of the largest and most diverse community colleges in the United States. I held that this last week. I had eight students. They were a fascinating mixture of young men and women. I just wanted to come and share some things about their stories because it demonstrates how these young people, these Dreamers, are a source of strength for our country and that we need to accommodate them.

Renata was one of my youngsters. She came to Virginia when she was 3 years old with her parents, her older brother, and sister. She graduated high school with an advanced diploma. Some of us know the International Baccalaureate diploma, which is rigorous. Now, with DACA, she is studying at George Mason, getting a degree in clinical psychology. She does brain injury research. She wants to do that research to hopefully help people like returning veterans who suffer from brain injuries.

Giancarla is a DACA recipient from Virginia. She came here a decade ago to be reunited with her parents. She hadn't seen her parents in 7 years. She received DACA in 2012. She went to Radford University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in international economics. Giancarla described how she is so appreciative of where DACA has gotten her in life, but she told me the night before we met, she had a conversation with her sister. Her sister was in high school and calling her big sister to describe how scared she was about what would happen if DACA was taken away. She talked about her little sister as a hard- working and studious kid, and she is worried she will not be able to go to college anymore and may be separated from family.

Min is a young man who is a Korean-American born in Korea and a DACA recipient who is at George Mason studying cyber. He talked about his desire to serve the United States and help us with cyber expertise but how the removal of DACA could hurt his studies and could hurt his ability to get security clearances to be able to offer his talents to the country.

Gloria, the fifth of these examples--there were eight students there--is an interesting young lady from Nigeria. She was born in England to Nigerian parents and brought here as a youngster. She will be the first DACA recipient in Virginia to graduate from law school, William and Mary Law School. She wants to graduate in December and help new Americans with immigration issues.

We talked about all kinds of concerns they have: deportation of themselves or family members, ability to get a driver's license, the ability to lawfully work and pay taxes--and all of these young people work and pay taxes right now--the ability to get instate tuition, which for many is the difference to being able to get a higher education. We talked about all of it, but we also talked about their love for this country, and the fact that for these young students, this country is all they know. Deportation back to a place they don't know is not really an option.

I was also happy to have at this roundtable--because we talked about there is no such thing as a DACA recipient without a DACA ally-- parents, teachers, family members, attorneys. They have a support group, and it is really important to acknowledge them too. We had officials from George Mason University, a public, comprehensive university in Virginia; Northern Virginia Community College, one of our community colleges; Marymount College; Catholic University in Northern Virginia--all of these allies, as well as representatives from other groups.

The former publisher of the Washington Post, Don Graham, came. He is funding, with others, a scholarship program to help Dreamers cover cost gaps if they have to pay out-of-State tuition, and this is working to help hundreds of Dreamers across the country. We talked to them and expressed our thanks to them for what they are doing.

I also read stories this week--and I will say this and conclude-- about other students. Juan is a 2017 graduate of Virginia Tech and now makes Blacksburg his home. He came to Virginia at age 5 and he said this:

It's really hard for me to think of myself as anything but a Virginian and an American. It's really hard to have that part of my identity detached from me.

That is how he views the reversal on DACA.

Guadelupe from the Shenandoah Valley--one of Virginia's very rural areas but has a significant number of DACA recipients. She started her freshman year at Bridgewater College, a small private college in the Valley. She says:

This is the only country I've ever known . . . I've pledged my allegiance to the stars and stripes every day.

This is the country to which these young people pledge their allegiance, owe their allegiance, want to express and act to demonstrate their allegiance. They are doing it already. They are making us proud. We need to step up. It was my great pleasure in June 2013 to join with the Senators from New Mexico, from Vermont, and nearly 70 others on the floor to do a comprehensive immigration reform that included many things but included a protection for these Dreamers. It was part of the education of a naive, young Senator who was in my first year to think: Great, we did something in the Senate. I am sure the House will do something, but 4 years later, not only did they not ever take up our bill even in committee, they didn't even pass anything by way of comprehensive immigration reform that we could put in a conference together.

Now the weight of this is on our shoulders with 6 months. Talented students like these 800,000 nationwide, between 12,000 and 13,000 in Virginia, have that fear, that anxiety: Are we going to be forced back into the shadows or, worse, are we or our family members possibly going to be deported?

I will close and say these youngsters again pledge their allegiance to the United States, and they are demonstrating every day that we are richer as a nation because of them. Why would we not want to have these talented young people pledge allegiance to us rather than elsewhere? America has always succeeded because we have been a great magnet for talent--growing our own talent and celebrating it but willing to attract talent from around the world. The society that attracts talent in the 21st century is going to be the society that succeeds. The most precious resource in life right now is not oil. It is not water. It is talent. These Dreamers have it, and we should want it. I hope my colleagues will work together in a bipartisan way, both Houses, to provide a protection.

With that, I yield the floor and notice other colleagues here waiting to speak on the same topic.

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