Congress Must Pass Legislation to Protect DREAMers

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Speaker, ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is inhumane and unAmerican. Whatever your politics on immigration, America's DREAMers did not choose their birthplace or their path early in life. They are innocents, and they have grown up as Americans. They have attended school here alongside our own children. They share our values and our principles. They believe in the American Dream.

Yes, deporting them hurts our economy, and yes, it damages our standing as a leading nation, but at its heart, this is a matter of conscience. What kind of justice will we give to kids brought here when they were 6 years old, who grew up as Americans and who have no home beyond our shores? To make them the targets of deportation is a violation of our national conscience.

Congress must act now to pass legislation to protect these DREAMers. A just nation must not take lightly the judgment of the innocent. Let us not discard our friends and our neighbors for the sake of political theater, not when we can instead draw strength of heart and mind and treasure from their experience, their differences, and the many values we share in common.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, we are indeed one.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source