[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 172 (Thursday, December 1, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6633-S6634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  DACA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to talk 
about an issue that I have raised many times from this very spot, and 
it is an issue relative to the undocumented young people living in 
America--undocumented because they are not legally in this country. 
They were brought here--many of them as infants, toddlers, or 
children--by their families. They were not aware of the family 
decision, other than the fact that they were in a car and moving into 
the United States. They didn't really appreciate where they came from. 
Many of them never knew where they came from. Some of them don't even 
speak the language of the country of their birth. They were brought 
here as children. They believed from the beginning they were part of 
America. In most, except in extraordinary circumstances, they were not 
even told of their immigration status at an early age.
  So they grew up going to school in America. They learned English. 
They pledged allegiance to the only flag they had ever known. They sang 
the national anthem of this country believing they were part of this 
country. At some point, though, there was this realization and 
disclosure that they were not. Legally, they weren't. They were 
undocumented.
  So these children were raised in the shadow of uncertainty--uncertain 
as to whether a knock on the door at any time of day or night might 
change their world forever; whether or not their parents might be 
deported from this country and they would have to go with them; or, God 
forbid, that something would happen to them and they would be deported. 
They lived with that fear for a long time.
  I came to understand it when a Korean girl in Chicago who was looking 
for an opportunity to go to college because of her musical skills, 
realized she was undocumented and might not be able to do it. So she 
came to our office, told us of her situation, and we tried to help.
  So 15 years ago I introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. The DREAM 
Act said that for young people brought to this country under the age of 
16 and who have lived here successfully, completed school, and have no 
criminal record to disqualify them, we should give them a chance--give 
them a chance to become legal in America and give them a chance, from 
my point of view, to become citizens. I introduced the bill 15 years 
ago. It has been debated. The word DREAMer came out of it and has now 
become pretty well-known across America to describe this group of young 
people.
  A few years ago, I prevailed on the President of the United States, 
Barack Obama, to give them a fighting chance to stay here. So by 
Executive action, he created something called DACA. DACA is the 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. This would allow these 
young people, undocumented, to step forward and disclose their status, 
come up with a filing fee of almost $500, and go through a process 
where they were submitted to a criminal background check. If they 
cleared all the hurdles, they would be given a temporary--underline the 
word temporary--right to live in the United States without fear of 
deportation and to work in this country.
  So over the years, since the President's Executive action, 744,000 
young people have come forward. Their lives are amazing. I have told 
their stories over and over. Imagine, if you will, that you lived in 
fear of being deported tomorrow or fear that your family would be 
broken up and how that would weigh on you as a young person. So they 
did something that was maybe rash in the eyes of their parents but 
heroic in my eyes. They stepped forward, out of the shadows, and said: 
If the United States of America has set legal standards for us to 
follow to stay here, we will comply with them. Their parents warned 
them and their friends warned them: You are turning yourself in. You 
are telling this government who you are, where you are, and where they 
can find you. But they did it anyway, and I encouraged them to do it, 
and many others did as well, saying: If you show good faith in this 
country, good faith in this government, I will do everything in my 
power to make sure it isn't used against you.
  Now we have reached a new stage in our history with a new President 
coming who has different views on immigration than the outgoing 
President. My concern, and a concern shared by millions across America, 
is this: What is going to happen to these young kids--744,000 of them--
who are currently in college, in high school, in professional schools, 
such as medical schools and law schools? They are doing amazing things 
with their lives, and yet things could happen immediately to change 
their status.
  I have talked to a number of my colleagues on the floor on both sides 
of the aisle about this, and there are pretty strong emotions about 
helping these young people. One of the leaders on this has been my 
friend and ally on immigration issues--on some immigration issues--and 
that is Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He and I talked about 
introducing legislation that would give a temporary stay so these young 
people could be protected until Congress does its work and comes up 
with an immigration bill that addresses this issue and many more.
  Senator Graham and I discussed it again this morning, and we even 
hope to have this bill ready before we leave next week--a bipartisan 
effort to say to the new President: Give these young people a fighting 
chance. At least protect them until we have had a chance to act on the 
larger immigration issues before us. I hope that colleagues on both 
sides will join us.
  There has been a lot of talk about what the next Congress will look 
like and what we will do, how we will tackle the biggest issues of our 
time. The Affordable Care Act, for example, which I was proud to 
support, is clearly controversial. There wasn't a single Republican 
Senator who voted for it. Some want to repeal it and replace it. Some 
are suggesting we will repeal it, but do it with 2 years in advance.
  So 2 years from now there might be a new Affordable Care Act. That 
puts us in a responsible position of coming up with an alternative in 
that period of time. I don't know if that is how this conversation will 
end, but I would suggest the same logic could apply when it comes to 
immigration: At least give us the time to come up with an alternative 
on immigration, and during that period of time, let us protect these 
youngest people.
  The stories I have told on the floor say more about this issue than 
any words I can express, and I want to tell another one of those 
stories this morning. This is about a young man from Illinois. His name 
is Asael Reyes. Here is his picture. He has his University of Illinois 
at Chicago T-shirt on. He is an interesting young man.
  He came to the United States at the age of 5, brought here from 
Mexico. He grew up on the North Side of Chicago. He is a bright young 
man, but he learned he was undocumented early in life. He really got 
despondent over the thought that he could lose everything and have to 
be forced to leave America. His classes were a challenge to him, and 
with this fear in his mind he started doing very poorly. In fact, he 
dropped out of high school. He said it weighed heavily on his mind that 
he might have to leave.
  He said:

       I felt that because of my status, I had no future. As a 
     result, my grades and attendance plummeted and I struggled to 
     do anything productive.

  Then, in 2012, President Obama announced DACA, and everything changed 
for Asael Reyes. Here is how he explains it:

       DACA meant that I had a future worth fighting for, and 
     because of that I returned to school and reignited my passion 
     for study. Because of DACA, I want to do whatever I can to 
     contribute to my country.


[[Page S6634]]


  When Asael says ``my country,'' he means the United States of 
America--the only country he has ever known.
  In his senior year in high school, this young man turned his life 
around because of DACA. He improved his grades, he was active in his 
community, he was head of his school's fund raising committee, he 
volunteered in a mentoring program, and he worked full time to support 
himself and his family. You see, young people like him--undocumented--
don't qualify for any Federal assistance to go to college. If you want 
to go to college, you have to pay for it. For most of them, it means 
working pretty hard to come up with the money to do it.
  Today Asael is in his sophomore year in the Honors College--the 
Honors College--at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a 
double major in psychology and political science, and he has a perfect 
4.0 grade point average. Talk about a turnaround. He is involved with 
student government, leads a recreational bike club called College of 
Cycling. Every week he delivers food from the college dining halls on 
bike to a local homeless shelter. This effort has inspired other 
student groups to start similar initiatives. He mentors middle school 
students, and he is the youngest board member of the Erie Neighborhood 
House--a place I have visited many times--a social service agency that 
provides assistance to low-income families in the city of Chicago. In 
addition to all this, he works part time as a security guard at local 
events like Cubs baseball games and Bears football games.
  Asael dreams of working in Chicago's city government someday. He 
says: ``I have a passion for my city, and I feel an obligation to do 
whatever I can to make it great by serving its communities.'' This is 
one story--one story out of 744,000.
  Will America be better if Asael Reyes is given his chance to stay 
here to make this a better nation? Of course, it will. At an early age, 
this young man was able to do a turnaround just on the hope that 
someday he might be able to live in this country legally.
  There are so many stories just like his. In that same city of 
Chicago, at Loyola University School of Medicine, there are 28 students 
who are undocumented. The school opened up competition, and some of the 
brightest kids around America for the first time saw a chance for an 
undocumented student to be a doctor.
  They have to sign up, incidentally--borrowing the money from the 
State of Illinois for their education--to serve a year of their lives 
as doctors in underserved areas of Illinois, in rural areas, and in the 
inner city, for each year they go to medical school. They willingly do 
it. They are prepared to give back. Asael is prepared to give back. The 
question is, Will we give them a chance?
  I am not an expert in the area of social media, but yesterday we 
tweeted a short message about this DACA challenge and what is going to 
happen to these 744,000 young people across America. The hashtag ``save 
DACA'' went out. My staff reports to me--and they are expert on this, I 
am not--in the span of 2 hours, we were trending across the United 
States of America. Six million people saw this hashtag over 10 million 
times. Think of that, 6 million people in 2 hours. It touched them what 
can happen to this young man and so many others.
  So will Congress rise to this challenge? Will Democrats and 
Republicans come to the rescue of these young people who are asking for 
just a chance--brought to this country not by their decision but the 
decision of their parents--asking for a chance now to have a life? I 
hope we will. It will be good for them. It will sure be good for 
America.

                          ____________________