DACA
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to tell a story about one of the great volunteers in Texas. His name is Jesus Contreras. He is a young man who has a great story, who was one of the heroes of Hurricane Harvey in his own small way.
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At the age of 6, Jesus was brought from Mexico to the United States by his parents. It was not a family decision. His mom and dad made the decision and brought him to Houston, TX, where he grew up and got good grades in school. He wanted to go to college. He went to the Lone Star College in Houston and became a paramedic--a paramedic who responded to Hurricane Harvey.
He spent 6 straight days out there, helping people who were in desperate need. Because of his training as a paramedic, he was able to give them emergency first aid and insulin when they were suffering from the impact of diabetes, and he did it day after day after day. He would go home, take a shower, and go right back out again. He finally took a day off and got some rest, and he went back and did it all over again.
The important part of this story is that Jesus Contreras is a paramedic because of the DACA Program, which you have just heard described on the floor by the Senator from Texas. It was President Obama's DACA Program that allowed him to stay in the United States, after having been brought here as a 6-year-old, and to go to school and become a paramedic. The DACA Program did that because it protected him from deportation, and it allowed him to legally work here in the United States as a paramedic. It was only because of DACA that this young man was able to step up and be part of that huge group of people who came forward in Houston, TX, and other cities and made such a difference in the lives of so many people.
So when I hear the DACA Program dismissed as just overreach by a President, illegal, and unconstitutional, I beg my colleagues: Take a look at the human side of this story for a moment. Take a look at the human side of 780,000 people, just like Jesus, who have been protected from deportation, and what they have done with their lives. He didn't vote to leave Mexico. His parents did. He didn't vote for them not to file papers once he arrived in the United States. His parents did. That is what the Dream Act and DACA are all about.
If I am speeding down the highway and a patrolman pulls me over and gives me a speeding ticket, they don't give a ticket to my grandson sitting in the backseat. He wasn't driving the car.
In this situation, the Dreamers and those protected by DACA were young people brought to this country and who know no other country.
For year after year, he stood up in the classroom and pledged allegiance to the only flag he knew. He believes himself to be American. Listen to what he wrote to me. This is what Jesus Contreras wrote to me:
Houston is my home and these are my people. I love my career--it's given me an opportunity to help people in ways I never imagined I could. DACA means everything to me--I would lose my license and certifications without it. I would be sent back to a country I don't know and would lose everything.
Is that what we want to see happen here? Do we want to set up a circumstance where this young man doesn't have a chance to continue to serve people as he did during Hurricane Harvey in Houston, TX? Of course not.
The announcement by the President today that he is going to bring an end to DACA, I guess, came as no major surprise, but I listened carefully to what President-Elect Trump and what President Trump said about DACA and Dreamers over the months. He said to me personally--he looked me in the eye and said: Don't worry about these kids. We are going to take care of the Dreamers. He said publicly: We love the Dreamers. Well, now we have a chance to do something about it.
I just had a press conference with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, of South Carolina. He and I have come together to introduce the Dream Act, which says, once and for all, that we need permanent law to protect these young people. It is not a new concept. I introduced the bill 16 years ago. If you said someone was a Dreamer 16 years ago, they would have said: Is he with the British rock group? People didn't know what a Dreamer was. They know today. It is people like Jesus, brought to this country as kids and who are just asking for a chance to be part of America--and they are willing to sacrifice.
When he went through Lone Star College, as an undocumented student, Jesus Contreras didn't qualify for one penny of Federal assistance--no government loans for him. He had to work his way through school. It takes that kind of determination to make it through school and to become an important part of America.
So today I am disappointed by what has happened--the announcement by Attorney General Sessions, who has never ever, in my time in the Senate, supported any immigration reform. He has never voted for the Dream Act. The fact that he was the first public voice saying that he was going to rescind--that the administration would rescind--DACA was no surprise. That is where he has been for as long as I have known him, publicly and politically. But I hope that the President now, because of the good things he said in the past about the Dream Act and DACA, will be part of the solution and will help us in the 6 months to pass something that makes a difference.
I listened to the Senator from Texas stack up a whole list of things we need to have before we can help people like Jesus. There are a lot of things we need to do. Comprehensive immigration reform is one of them. I was one of the persons who put it together and voted for it when it had 68 votes in the Senate a few years ago. We need that. But, for goodness' sake, we have a time-sensitive issue now with the Dreamers and DACA. We need to do something about it and do it quickly.
That is why Senator Graham and I are calling for passing the Dream Act in this September session. We know it is there. We have heard positive things said about it by Speaker Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House, and even by Senator McConnell, Senator Hatch, and many who cosponsored it. We have to bring this measure up and get it done, once and for all.
In the meantime, 780,000 young people in America protected by DACA heard the news today, and their hearts were broken. They know now that the clock is running. It is the deportation clock. If we don't act--and act in a timely fashion--young people like this man here, who risked his life and helped the people in Houston during Hurricane Harvey, may be deported, and he will certainly lose any opportunity he has to continue to be a licensed paramedic.
Will America be better if Jesus Contreras has to leave the United States? Would Houston have been better during this crisis if he had not been there? I don't think so. We know better. We know that these young people really care and really want to be a part of our Nation. They are willing to turn in all their family information, go through background checks, and pay a filing fee under DACA. You know they want to be a part of this country. They want to serve in the military. They want to be of service to the people they live with in their communities. Now it is up to us.
So let's not make excuses. Let's make some law. Let's do it the right way. Let's pass the Dream Act now. Let's make this a priority as we return this September. Let's get it done with the other priorities we need to consider this month.
I yield the floor.
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