Dreamers

Floor Speech

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Mr. ESPAILLAT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my concerns and my deep shame for many in this Chamber who continue to gamble with the lives of over 800,000 Dreamers, young people who are workers and students. They are teachers and members of our Armed Forces. They are dads and moms.

After five continuing resolutions, we still have left them out in the cold, over 800,000 of them. This week, the Senate is, once again, sandbagging the Dreamers. While Senator McConnell has publicly made this an open debate, it is far from being a fair process.

Just yesterday, a Federal judge in the Eastern District of New York ruled conclusively that eliminating DACA and the benefits extended to DACA recipients is an illegal act. Just as this is happening, the Senate continues and begins to sandbag the Dreamers by first putting on the table the issue of sanctuary cities.

Many have a flawed view of what sanctuary cities are. Many erroneously think that sanctuary cities harbor hardened criminals. That is far from the truth.

A sanctuary city is a city that allows a mom to take her child to school, who is undocumented, without fear that the principal will call ICE or the authorities.

A sanctuary city is a city that allows a senior citizen to go into an emergency room to be treated in a hospital without the fear that the nurse will turn him or her in.

A sanctuary city is a city that allows people who are living under the shadows to go into a police precinct and report a crime without the fear that they will be deported.

That is what a sanctuary city is. It is an intricate part of our soul as a country of immigrants and States and cities of immigrants.

The Senate process is far from being fair. A fair process would be to start a bipartisan debate on Dreamers. The Speaker of this Chamber has yet to make a commitment to bring a clean Dream Act to the floor.

Dreamers are our children. They are my children. They belong to all of us. When we look into their faces, I see my own face. When I look into their faces, I see a genius MacArthur Fellow winner like Cristina Jimenez and Ivan Rosales, who is working toward becoming a doctor in the military.

There is so much aspiration in these Dreamers. This is why over 80 percent of Americans in red States and blue States and in Republican districts and in Democratic districts support Dreamers staying here in the United States.

They represent the best of us. They represent the foundation of our Nation and the tenets of what the Founding Fathers believe in: that people should come to America, prosper, and make her a better place for all of us to live in.

Mr. Speaker, the fate of these young people rests right here in the palm of our hands. We need to ask ourselves: Are we a nation of aspirations? Or are we a nation of deportations?

It is in our hands. We cannot keep deferring a vote on a clean Dream Act. A deferred vote is a dream denied. Justice delayed is justice denied.

But I tell the Dreamers this: Don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged. Don't be deterred. Don't be dismayed. You have to continue to fight for the most important issues facing America. You have done a tremendous job. Keep this fight moving forward for justice in America.

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