Daca

Floor Speech

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise to call upon our colleagues in the Senate to protect DACA recipients before the end of this Congress.

Six years old, Madam Speaker. Six years old. That is the average age recipients of DACA were when they first entered the U.S. through no fault of their own.

Known as Dreamers, these young people have served in our military, attended our schools, and worked in our communities. They have grown up here, eagerly contributing to our neighborhoods and the diversity that makes America great. They are Americans in their heart and their soul and in their minds because this is the only country that they have known.

Many of them are now educated doctors, trusted lawyers, committed schoolteachers, and essential workers. In fact, more than 200,000 of them worked as essential workers during the pandemic keeping us safe, keeping us healthy. Now, because of right-wing attacks on our communities' all-stars, their futures are uncertain.

Madam Speaker, Dreamers need action, and they need it now.

In my home State of Texas, nearly 100,000 Dreamers are at risk of facing deportation, and 30,000 of them live in my hometown of Houston.

They are not strangers; they are not Martians coming in from some alien nation. We are talking about our friends, our neighbors, people we go to church with, people we buy groceries with, people that are just down the street, and they are also part of our families.

For our community, it is now or never. The Senate must put Dreamers over the political tactics of fear and hate. It is simple: we need to put people over politics. We need to put Dreamers over rhetoric. The time is now.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Garcia. We know that Americans want DACA to be codified. They want our Dreamers to live here.

Indeed, in the United States we know that a bipartisan poll conducted in October 2022 found overwhelming support, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all support this. Democrats support it at 93 percent, Independents at 75 percent, and our Republican neighbors, they also support it at 71 percent.

This needs to happen. This needs to happen for us to truly live up to the promise that we could be.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is holding this Special Order hour. I welcome all of my colleagues who have come to speak before us here today.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz), the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who has come with his two daughters, to share with us his thoughts on Dreamers.

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