The DREAM Act

Floor Speech

Ms. CLARKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in full support of the DREAM Act.

The immigrant children and young adults that are affected by our broken immigration laws are as diverse as this country. My district, the 11th Congressional district of New York, is home to a significant and diverse immigrant population. According to the Census Bureau, 47 percent of the immigrant population that settled in my district between 1980 and 2008 has yet to obtain naturalized citizenship. Many of those individuals are documented legal residents and some are not.

With such a large population, my office has been inundated with instances of young people who are either facing the threat of deportation to a country they have never known or had no choice in leaving, or they are forced into an immigration purgatory whereby the opportunities to obtain higher education and gainful employment are curtailed by the immigrant status. Many of these young people have considered themselves Americans, having never truly known their land of birth.

We cannot delay passing the DREAM Act any longer. We cannot continue to punish a community of young people that came to this country at no fault of their own. Many communities across this Nation have nurtured these young people.

I support the DREAM Act, and urge my colleagues to do the same.

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