Daca
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORREA. Madam Speaker, if I may, I just want to say that the Dreamer issue is not about immigrants, it is about America.
Dreamers are the perfect kind of immigrant that you want in this country. They follow the law. They pay taxes. They are either gainfully employed or have to be studying in order to qualify as a Dreamer under the DACA program.
Now, 70 to 80 percent of all Americas, Democrats and Republicans, support a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. They are our friends. They are our neighbors, firefighters, police officers, and they also serve in the military.
Here is a poster of one of my constituents, Jose Angel Garibay. He was the first servicemember from Orange County to make the ultimate sacrifice for America after 9/11 in Iraq. He died as a Dreamer, as a noncitizen.
Later on, this body saw it appropriate to give him U.S. citizenship posthumously.
Jose shouldn't have waited until after he passed away to become a U.S. citizen because he made the ultimate sacrifice for his new country--the only country he knew, the United States of America.
Madam Speaker, I am proud to inform you that I represent probably the largest number of Dreamers in the country: Orange County, California. Orange County, the county that Ronald Reagan used to say was the place that good Republicans would go to die.
Not very long ago, my daughter came home with two of her very good friends, and they were both very scared and crying. They said: We are Dreamers. Are we going to be deported? What do we do?
Good, sweet, young ladies--students. I said: You keep studying hard. You keep working hard. You keep following the law. You keep being a good person and let us work on legislation in Washington.
Today, my simple ask from the Senate is: Do the right thing. Stop treating Dreamers as political footballs, you kick them whenever it is appropriate.
I ask the Senate to please pass the Dreamer legislation and give those 2 million Dreamers the opportunity to earn--not to be given--but to earn a pathway to the American Dream.
Again, 70 to 80 percent of Americans agree with this concept. Let's do our job. Let's continue to keep America as the greatest country in the world.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for bringing us the story of such bravery and sacrifice, because across this country Dreamers are participating in every single aspect of our lives, whether it be defending our country in the United States or abroad.
They are firefighters. I have a story here of an amazing firefighter who is from Sacramento, California, and was one of the first Dreamers who became a firefighter. He has now moved on and is pursuing additional studies so that he can pursue a career in health to serve as a PA.
We know that in so many of our areas, we don't have enough doctors and nurses and PAs and nurse practitioners and, yet, this Dreamer is engaged in that very area of study.
Over and over again, if we deny the Dreamers their ability to continue to contribute to our country, we will suffer, whether that be in the area of health, as we just heard from one of our speakers, from our chair, or the area of the arts, or as the numerous teachers, the numerous Dreamers have chosen as their area of expertise and their way of giving back to teach our youngest.
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