Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on September 5 of last year, President Trump's Attorney General made an announcement. It was an announcement that affected the lives of about 800,000 people living in America. The announcement was that the President was going to abolish the DACA Program.

DACA was a program created by President Obama by Executive order. Under that Executive order, if you were brought to the United States as an infant, a toddler, a child, if you grew up in this country, were educated in this country, and had no criminal record of any consequence, President Obama said that you have a chance to apply to stay in this country on a temporary, renewable basis--2 years at a time--and that you won't be deported and you can take a job.

Eight hundred thousand young people came forward under President Obama's Executive order, under this DACA order. What have they done with their lives? Many of them went to school and had to work at the same time because, being undocumented, they didn't qualify for any Federal student assistance. A lot of them took jobs all across the country--about 20,000 of them as teachers in schools, and 900 of them volunteered for the U.S. military, taking the same oath as everyone else, saying that they are willing to risk their lives for America.

The success stories of these DACA recipients are boundless. I have told a number on the floor in the course of discussing this issue over the years. Today, I will tell another one. I am so proud of what they have done. They are amazing young people. Can you imagine growing up in America with all the challenges of youth and all the demands from your parents and peers and superiors but also knowing something that you can't say publicly: that at any moment, you could be deported from this country because you don't have the necessary legal status? That is the story of these DACA young people, the Dreamers.

President Trump, if you will remember, talked about immigration a lot in his last campaign. Some of the things he said were very harsh. He talked about building this big, beautiful wall, from sea to shining sea, across the Mexican border, and, of course, told us the Mexicans would pay for it. Then he referred to those in Mexico who came to the United States as Mexican rapists and criminals. It was pretty harsh language. But interestingly, toward the end of the campaign and after he was elected, he started saying conciliatory, good things about these DACA Dreamers. He told me personally, when I first met him on the day he was inaugurated: We will take care of those kids, Senator.

Well, on September 5 of last year, he announced that the program protecting those young people would expire as of Monday of this week, 2 days ago. As of that date, he said, if Congress hasn't replaced the DACA Program with something new, something legal, something statutory, there would be no protection for these DACA recipients as their protected status expired. For 800,000 in limbo, uncertainty is their future.

Well, the President challenged Congress, and a number of us took him up on the challenge. Six of us--three Democrats and three Republicans-- Senators sat down for months. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was part of that group, a Republican; Jeff Flake of Arizona was part of that group, a Republican; and Cory Gardner of Colorado, a Republican. On our side, Michael Bennet of Colorado, a Democrat; Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat. We worked out a bipartisan agreement among us that not one of us would have written. It was a compromise in trying to meet the President's challenge of replacing DACA with something that could be the law of the land and work.

I reflect on that effort and believe it was a good one. It was certainly in good faith, and it was bipartisan. When we presented it to President Trump on January 11 at 12 noon--I remember the time very specifically--he rejected it. He not only rejected that bipartisan solution to the crisis he had created, he rejected five other bipartisan proposals to try to resolve the crisis he had created in eliminating the DACA Program.

So here we are, just 2 days after his March 5 deadline, and where do we stand? Well, the situation has been complicated by three Federal courts that have been asked to review President Trump's decision abolishing DACA. Two of those courts have issued injunctions and said to the Trump administration: Stop what you are doing. You have to prove to us that you have the legal authority to end this program the way you ended it.

There is an injunction stopping the Trump administration from doing what the President said he would do. The President's administration didn't think much of those courts and decided to file an extraordinary appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is across the street, to knock down this injunction and to go forward with closing down DACA. Last week, the Supreme Court rejected the Solicitor General's petition.

So here we stand. The President has abolished the DACA Program. The protection for 800,000 young people from being deported, the protection that allowed them to work, is officially--President Trump's point of view--abolished. It has not been replaced, the deadline has been reached, and it is being argued in court.

So how much protection does that buy for the 800,000? We don't know. We know it is a court-based protection, an injunction that could last for weeks or months or even longer, but that uncertainty is what is hanging over this whole debate.

So this morning I called the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, and I asked her: Explain to me what your Department is doing because of these court injunctions and President Trump's decision to abolish this program.

She gave me a partial explanation. In fairness to her, she promised to get back to me and even promised to come up here to Capitol Hill next week and try to explain in more detail how the Department of Homeland Security is handling this.

For example, if you were protected by DACA--a young person--and if the President's abolition of DACA did not allow you to renew your DACA application when it expired, what is your status? Can you be deported?

Secretary Nielsen told me point blank: No, we will not deport those who have pending DACA applications.

I then asked the next question: Do you have the authority to allow these same people to continue legally working, as they did under DACA?

She didn't know the answer, and in fairness to her, she said she would look into it and get back to me. I look forward to that happening.

It is a sad situation that this Congress can't pass a law to deal with this kind of emergency. Ask the American people what they think about Dreamers, what they think about young people who were brought to the United States as children, infants, and babies, and who are asking for a chance to be legal in America, to become citizens. Ask Americans what they think. Overwhelmingly, they say: Of course. Why would you punish these children who grew up in this country? They didn't break a law or commit a crime. They didn't make a decision; it was a decision made by others. They should have a chance.

Overwhelmingly, the American people say that, 85 percent or more, including more than 60 percent of people who say they voted for President Trump. Can you find an issue with that kind of public support? For those who follow the news, there is another one called universal background checks for guns, which has an even higher level of support. But going back to the DACA issue, 85 percent of the American people believe Congress should pass a law to give these young people a chance--not punish them, not deport them. Give them a chance. Give them a chance to earn their way to legal status. Despite that, this Senate has failed to pass a measure to do that.

Two weeks ago, we made it to the floor. We had four different versions of the bill. I won't go into detail other than to tell you that the most popular version of the bill got 54 votes. You would think that in a Chamber of 100 Senators, that would be enough, but not under our rules--you need 60 votes.

The President had a plan, incidentally. President Trump brought his immigration plan to the floor of the Senate the same week we debated this. Now, understand, there are 51 Republican Senators and 49 Democrats in this Chamber. On the day of the vote, one Senator, Senator McCain, was missing, so 50 to 49. How many votes did President Trump get for his immigration policy presented on the floor of the Republican-controlled Senate? Thirty-nine. Sixty Senators voted against it, including a substantial number of Republicans. So the President's approach to this has been rejected by even his own party.

What has the House of Representatives, the other Chamber, done about this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Sadly, that is a commentary on many major issues facing our country. The Congress has not even taken up a serious debate, let alone found a solution, and here we sit. It is easy for us to sit here in the Senate Chamber, confident of our own citizenship status, but for 800,000, the uncertainty makes a wreck of their lives. I have met many of them. I have talked to them. They are outstanding people. They have succeeded when others failed. They have been determined and resilient when others gave up. They are running out of time.

President Trump created this crisis for DACA on September 5. He has been unable to agree to any of six different bipartisan measures to solve it--not one--and today the fate and future of these young people rest in the hands of the courts.

It is easy to speak of these young people in gross numbers--800,000, 1.8 million--but over the years, I have decided it is better to get to know them personally. As they have had the courage to come forward and identify themselves, I have come to the floor to tell their stories. This is the 110th time I am bringing a story to the floor.

This man is Alejandro Fuentes. Alejandro was brought to the United States at the age of 4 from Chile and grew up in San Diego. He was an extraordinary high school student--honor roll, AP scholar with distinction, and a member of the National Honor Society. He was involved in a lot of activities--high school cross-country and lacrosse, a member of the choir--and volunteered as a worship leader at his church.

He was accepted at Whitman College in the State of Washington, and when he was there, he was a member of the campus Christian fellowship group. He volunteered with the local Humane Society and was the philanthropy chair of his fraternity. He was a student government representative and a mentor to other students.

After graduation, he was accepted into Teach For America. We know that program, don't we? That is where some of our best and brightest college graduates say: I will give you 2 years of my life and work in a school that needs me as a teacher. Send me to a tough area to work. Thousands have done it. Alejandro--not a citizen of the United States-- said: I will do it. I will do it for my country.

Today, he is a sixth grade math teacher at a middle school in Denver, CO. He volunteers as a mentor after school for students who need help with math.

What is going to happen to this man? What is going to happen to him if Congress fails to replace DACA? What is going to happen if he is deported? And it could happen. There are 20,000 just like him, teachers across America who are DACA-protected and have no protection now, no protection in the law. Their only protection is a court order, which could be changed in a moment.

If he leaves, of course, the students will pay a price, and certainly America will pay a price. Will we be better off as a nation? Of course not. This young man grew up in America. He was brought here at the age of 4, went to his classrooms in San Diego and pledged allegiance to the flag every day. This is his country. It is the only country he has ever known. Why would we want to throw him out of this country after he has gone through all of these things in life and achieved an amazing record of success? To me, it would be a horrible waste.

There is a larger issue at stake here than just DACA. The issue is immigration in America. Are we a nation of immigrants? I think so. But 2 weeks ago, at the immigration Federal agency, they decided to strike those words from their mission statement, that America was a nation of immigrants. They can strike all the words they want, but they can't strike the facts. The facts tell us that with the exception of Native Americans, who preceded us, we are all immigrants--some voluntary, some forced, but we are all immigrants in this country. We come from every corner of the Earth. We are as diverse as any nation could be. That is our history, that is our strength, and that is our legacy. That diversity makes us an extraordinary nation in the world.

Those people who came here from far-reaching shores came here for a lot of reasons. My grandmother was one of them. She brought my mom. My mom was an immigrant to this country. I don't know all the reasons that my grandmother came here, but I know there was one reason she came. She had three little kids, and she carried a bag and had with her a Catholic prayer book from the country of Lithuania. It was written in Lithuanian. The Russians were in control of Lithuania at the time, and they had prohibited prayer books written in Lithuanian. My grandmother, whom I never knew, was one tough lady. She was willing to pick up this prayer book--this contraband in Lithuania--and bring it to the United States of America. I don't know if she ever took a constitutional law course, but she knew there was freedom in this country. Nobody was going to stop her from praying from her prayer book when she got to the United States. I am sure economics had more to do with her coming, but that was part of the reason my family made it to this country. It is something I have never forgotten, and I have told the story many times.

All these people who have come to this country--every single one of us brings a story, a family story. Now we are being told it is a mistake--it is a mistake to continue legal immigration to America.

The President's proposal on immigration would cut legal immigration to this country almost in half. Currently, our Nation of 320, 330 million people brings in approximately 1.1 million legal immigrants a year--1 million legal immigrants; 320 million Americans. It is not an overwhelming number in comparison. On average more than sixty percent of the 1.1 million people are members of families of those already here.

Do you just ask to come in, and we let you come to America if you have a family member here? Of course not. You wait and you wait. For example, in the Philippines, you may wait 20 years for a member of the family to be reunited with someone who is already an American citizen-- 20 years waiting in line. The President's proposal--the one that has come to the floor of the Senate that got 39 votes--said we ought to cut the number of legal immigrants almost in half, tell those people to wait longer or stay where they are.

In most cultures, in the American culture, the family unit is our strength--flag, family, God. How many times have we heard those speeches from politicians? Yet these families who are trying to be reunited and to be strong are being told: You are not wanted. That is a mistake. The last time we did that was in 1924 on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We decided--the Senate then--there were certain people we didn't need in America. Asians were excluded. People from Africa and Eastern Europe and other regions were severely restricted. That could have included my mother's family. They restricted Italians. We had enough Italians--that is what Congress said. They restricted Jewish people.

That shameful chapter in American immigration history prevailed for over 40 years, until we passed a new immigration law. Now this administration wants to take us back to that debate. This administration wants to change the face of immigration in America. The President has been explicit about that in terms of what he would like to see America look like in the future--not as diverse, excluding people from certain places. I think that is a mistake.

If there is one thing that has made us strong, it is the fact that this diversity, when it comes together under that flag, can conquer everyone and everything on Earth. Why would we walk away from that legacy? Why would we walk away from Alejandro? Why would we walk away from 800,000 protected by DACA? Why? Is that the legacy we want to leave, that we have excluded these talented, high-achieving, energetic, fearless young people? Alejandro's story is certainly not unique. There are 20,000 teachers like him who are DACA recipients and DACA- protected.

Teach For America, the program that pays these young college graduates a limited amount of money to go to challenging schools--190 of them were protected by DACA. They are officially not citizens of the United States, but they are willing to teach kids in the toughest schools in America. They teach in 11 different States.

There is a question now about what happens next, and I don't know. Right now, the President created this crisis, and only the President can solve this crisis. There are Republican Members of the House and Senate who will not vote for anything unless it has the Trump stamp of approval on it, and I don't know what that can be. Six different times we have gone to him, and six times he has rejected bipartisan approaches. We need the President to help us work toward a solution. It is up to the Republican leaders in Congress--they control the House and the Senate--to take yes for an answer and accept one of these bipartisan approaches, to save these young people, and to resolve this crisis that faces us.

Congress needs to do its job. We should make the Dream Act the law of the land, or we will be responsible for hundreds of thousands of talented young immigrants leaving our workforce and put them at risk of immediate deportation. It would be a chapter in American immigration history even sadder than 1924.

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