Dreamers Are Americans

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about an important issue affecting our country, and that is Dreamers, many of whom are in Washington this week, fighting for their lives in front of the United States Supreme Court.

Dreamers are Americans just like you and me, and they should be treated as such. When the Obama administration established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, these were infants from 6 months to 6 years of age and anywhere in between. These Dreamers came here through no choice of their own, but for them, this is the only country they have ever known.

They were qualified and granted, under this program enacted by the Obama administration, to be protected from deportation and, thus, granted a legal status.

Since then, these young people have made immense contributions to our society every day. They are our friends. They are our neighbors.

But they have been betrayed by this administration's cruel policies toward migrant communities, including the efforts to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, otherwise known as DACA, and to dismantle the advance parole initiative, which was a part of this effort and allows Dreamers to visit their loved ones in the event that there is a wedding, a funeral, and some other critical moments in their lives with their families in the country that they originally came from.

These cruel and shameless policies have thrown the lives of these people, most of them young, into chaos. They live in fear every day, fear to see if they will be removed, deported from the only home that they have ever known, from the only country they really have ever known.

Living with this uncertainty is not right. It is unfair, and it is unjust. It is not the American way.

For 243 years, America has been a beacon of shining light for immigrants around the world. In this case, we made promises to protect Dreamers. If the Supreme Court rescinds these protections, I believe Congress must keep fighting. I will keep fighting.

I know these Dreamers. I have visited with them. They are in my schools, in the community colleges, and in the State universities.

And so I want them to know, I want you to know because these Dreamers reflect and represent what? The American Dream.

What is the American Dream? The American Dream is about immigrants past and immigrants present, and it is the embodiment of what Dreamers are a part of.

So I ask my colleagues to join with us this afternoon in standing up and speaking out for those Dreamers.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source