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Mr. President, I want you to imagine for a moment that you are an 11-year-old child. Your mother tells you to pack some things because you are going on a trip. So you pick out four or five of your favorite toys and you put them into a backpack. You put in a bottle of water and some rosary beads as well.

You walk out through the door of your home into the night with your mom. You don't know what is going on. You are just doing what you were told. You hold your mother's hand, and you walk in silence.

Soon you are walking with 20 others through the Mexican desert. You are tired and hungry and carrying everything that matters to you on your back. The sweat is pouring off. The prickly bushes scrape your body. You are overcome by dehydration, and you faint.

Someone comes to your aid. They give you some water from their canteen. You come to and you keep going. Eventually, on this journey, you make it into the United States of America, into Arizona. Then, out of the blue, the years pass and you grow up. Fourteen years pass and now you are 25 years old. You have spent more than half your life in the United States of America. You are studying and going to college to get your degree in economics or working full time at the local bank to save money.

You have made friends and built a life for yourself, and things are going well. Then, all of a sudden, your future--everything you had planned for in life--is thrown into doubt. The President of the United States has just said that he views you as a criminal because of the decision your mother made well more than a decade before. Just remember what you did. You followed what your mom said: Put some things into a backpack, and we are going out into the night.

It doesn't matter to President Trump that you had no choice in that decision. It doesn't matter to him all you have had to overcome. It doesn't matter how you have invested so seriously in being a productive part of your community. In the eyes of the President of the United States, you are a criminal.

It really shouldn't be too hard to imagine that story because the story close to that is the story of some 800,000 people living in the United States--young men and women who came here as children, having nothing to do with the decision themselves.

This particular story that I have read to you is the true story of an Oregonian. It is a story that belongs to Hugo, one of 11,000 Dreamers living in Oregon today. Like the hundreds of thousands of others brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, Hugo's future was thrown into complete chaos by the President--thrown into chaos when Attorney General Sessions, acting on orders from President Trump, announced the cruel and heartless decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, or the DACA Program. We know this program best as a program for Dreamers, those young men and women who are seeking to do everything they can to have productive lives, to contribute to their community, to establish a financial foundation, and to contribute back to America--those young men and women who know no other nation, who speak no other language, who contribute to society, and who are American in every way that matters.

But that is not the viewpoint President Trump has, and so we in the Senate have to act. The United States is and always has been a nation of immigrants. Unless one is a Native American, each of us--every one of us--is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants who were fleeing famine, immigrants who were fleeing political persecution, immigrants who were fleeing religious persecution, immigrants who were simply seeking a better life, greater opportunity, greater freedom for their family.

That is the foundation on which America has been based. Our Founding Fathers recognized just how vital immigration was to the growth and strength of our budding Nation. After all, it was James Madison, the author of our Constitution and our fourth President, who declared during the Constitutional Convention that ``America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity.'' He continued: ``That part of America which had encouraged immigration most has advanced most rapidly. . . .''

Now, we have always had debates and discussions about immigration. At times, we have been shortsighted in banning or limiting one group or another in a generation only to turn around and welcome them with open arms in the next generation. Time and again, we have overcome our prejudices. We have remained true to the loving and compassionate Nation we are, a Nation that has welcomed others to our shores.

If we want to know the true nature of our country, we only need to look to the Statute of Liberty, where there, below the feet of Lady Liberty, are inscribed those words: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'' I think that line from the poet Emma Lazarus resonates so powerfully because we know that so many of our lives are connected through our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents to that experience of coming to America's shores poor and tired and yearning to breathe free.

Generation after generation of immigrants saw Lady Liberty, this welcoming symbol of freedom and opportunity, as their first glimpse of America. It has inspired hope and given people across the world permission to dream.

But if we end DACA, if we crush the dreams of these young men and women, we might as well take away those words off of the pedestal of Lady Liberty because we will no longer be that compassionate Nation. We will no longer be that welcoming Nation that has played such an instrumental role in each of our histories.

I can't think of anything more damaging to the well-being or the future of our great Nation because we know that when people come here and add their distinctive cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds to the melting pot of America, we become a stronger country and a stronger people.

This is especially true of our Dreamers, the 800,000 men and women for whom America is the only home they know, the 800,000 who came here as young children, the 800,000 who went to school here and made their friends here and grew up here and invested in creating a future here, the young men and women whom we promised, if they came out of the shadows, if they did everything else right, if they obeyed the laws and met the rigorous requirements asked of them, that we would protect and look after them in this Dreamer Program--people such as Hugo Nicolas, whose story I just shared, and Zaira Flores, another Dreamer who came to America as a child who grew up in this country and is now giving back to our country.

Zaira came when she was just 6 years old. Her younger brother was in need of medical attention, and he couldn't get that medical attention back home in Mexico, but he got it here in America. He underwent years of treatment and surgery, and thereupon Zaira's family decided that this was their home. Two decades have passed. Two decades have passed, and now 26-year-old Zaira Flores works for the State of Oregon. She is a bilingual counselor and volunteer coordinator who assesses social services and disability programs for older adults. Zaira didn't make the decision to come here or to stay here. She didn't have a say in the matter. She doesn't remember her life back in Mexico.

Attorney General Sessions and President Trump may say she is a criminal, but I say she is a contributing member of Oregon who has done everything right to build a solid life, a contributing member to our country, and we need to pass the Dream Act to make sure she can continue to make these substantial contributions. It is the only right thing to do for her, but it is also the right thing to do for our community, for Zaira and Hugo and the hundreds of thousands of talented, driven young men and women just like them who embody the American dream. They have risen up from humble beginnings. They have overcome adversity to thrive. Aren't these exactly the kinds of individuals we want in our Nation? We ought to be celebrating these Dreamers for all they are doing, not punishing them for choices made by their parents.

The eviction of 800,000 Dreamers just doesn't hurt them, it doesn't just punish them, it doesn't just damage their families, it hurts all of us because as punishing as it would be to send Dreamers back to countries they have never known, all of us will pay a price if this is allowed to happen. We will pay the price economically in the estimated $460 billion the economy would lose over the next 10 years, and we would pay the price morally as our Nation's standing as a beacon of hope and opportunity is tarnished in the eyes of the world.

If President Trump will not do the right thing, if he is willing to turn his back on these 800,000 young men and women, then it is up to all of us in Congress to stand up for them. It is what many of my Republican colleagues, both here in the Senate and over in the House, have said they want to accomplish, including Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell. It is what President Trump's friends in the business sector have said they want. Just this past weekend, more than 400 industry leaders signed a letter pledging their support for DACA and urging the President to continue it. It is what nearly three-quarters of the American people say they want to see happen in the most recent polls. So let's listen to our business leaders, let's listen to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's listen to the

American people, let's listen to our hearts and our minds on this issue before us, and let's act expeditiously--not in 6 months, with days to spare before President Trump's clock runs out. Let's act within 6 days. Let's act quickly because for every single day that passes now, these individuals and their extended families are in a whirl of pain and uncertainty. That simply isn't right. Let's protect these Dreamers who are here through no fault of their own, who have contributed an enormous amount to our country, and who are American in every single way that matters.

To paraphrase President Madison, we are a nation that is indebted to immigration for our incredible success. We cannot--we must not renege on that debt by turning our backs on the Dreamers. It would undermine our Nation's moral standing. It would hurt our economy. It is cruel. It is mean. It is absolutely just plain wrong. Let's get that bill on this floor and let's pass it expeditiously.

Thank you.

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