[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 186 (Tuesday, November 14, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7186-S7187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  DACA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was 16 years ago that I introduced a 
bill known as the DREAM Act. The purpose of the DREAM Act was to give 
undocumented young people brought to the United States under the age of 
18 an opportunity to go through a background check and to earn their 
way to legal status--16 years ago. The bill passed the Senate at 
various times and it passed the House, though never quite in the same 
year at the same time.
  Now we face a crisis, literally. It is a crisis involving hundreds of 
thousands of these young people across America. It was just September 5 
when the President of the United States announced that he was going to 
eliminate DACA.
  DACA was the Executive order of President Obama that allowed these 
Dreamers to come forward, pay a filing fee of about $500 or $600, 
submit themselves to a criminal background check, and, after that 
background check, if they cleared it, to be given a 2-year allowance to 
live in the United States without fear of deportation--2 years at a 
time--and the legal capacity to work. That was what DACA was about.
  So 780,000 young people did it. They came forward. They surrendered 
the information about themselves and their families. They submitted 
themselves to criminal background checks, and they ended up getting the 
protection of DACA. They went on to go to school, to go to work, to 
become teachers or engineers, to go to medical school, and to do things 
that really mean that they will have a future in this country that will 
be a benefit to them and to all of us.
  So President Trump said that program will end on March 5, 2018, and 
he established a deadline, for those who were going to see their DACA 
eligibility end during that period of time, for them to renew. The 
deadline was October 5. It meant that they had to come forward with the 
filing fee and at least apply to go through the process again. It was 
quite a hardship on many of these young people to come up with the 
money for the filing fee and to realize that the clock was ticking in a 
very meaningful way about their ability to protect themselves. Many of 
them stepped forward and asked for help from families, from churches, 
and from friends to come up with the filing fee to make sure that they 
renewed their DACA eligibility in time.
  Let me tell you what happened to some of them who went through this 
process.
  Here is one case. On September 14, Allison Baker, a lawyer for the 
Legal Aid Society in New York, sent one of these young individuals' 
application to renew this permit that would let him stay and work in 
the United States legally as part of DACA. The date of September 14 
should be remembered because the deadline for filing was October 5. To 
be sure, this lawyer sent this renewal application for this young man 
by certified mail. Back in the day when I practiced law, that was one 
way to make sure you had written proof of when you actually mailed 
something far in advance of a deadline. Tracking data from the U.S. 
Postal Service showed that the envelope arrived in Chicago on September 
16. It was mailed from New York on September 14 and arrived in Chicago 
September 16, on its way to a regional processing warehouse of the U.S. 
Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that administers the 
program known as DACA.
  Then the packet started circling the Chicago postal system in a 
mysterious holding pattern. From September 17 to September 19, it was 
in transit to destination, according to the Postal Service. Then its 
tracking whereabouts disappeared until October 4, where, once again, 
the Postal Service assured the sender that it was ``on its way.''
  On October 6, the day after the deadline, this certified application, 
which was sent on September 14, arrived, and the application for this 
24-year-old man was rejected by our government.
  He wasn't alone. We know of at least 33 other cases just like this. 
Congressman Luis Gutierrez, of my State of Illinois, told the story of 
another application renewal sent on September 13 for an October 5 
deadline. It arrived on October 6, as well. Another sent their 
paperwork on September 21. It wasn't received until October 9. What 
Congressman Gutierrez said is very obvious: Because somebody else did 
not do their job correctly, we are taking innocent young immigrants and 
making them deportable. That is unacceptable, Congressman Gutierrez 
said.
  What does the U.S. Postal Service have to say about what I just read 
to you, those two or three cases? On Thursday, in a rare admission from 
a Federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service took the blame. David 
Partenheimer, a spokesman for the Postal Service, said that there had 
been ``an unintentional temporary mail processing delay in the Chicago 
area.''
  Remember what I am saying here. Young people, undocumented had 
applied successfully and had been accepted into the DACA Program. The 
President announced he was going to end

[[Page S7187]]

the program, and those--many of them--had to re-sign up, renew, by 
October 5. They did it. They mailed it. Their application didn't arrive 
in time.
  It doesn't take a big leap of faith or intelligence to realize what 
should be done. Clearly, this agency should be giving these young 
people a chance. Once again, they have done everything they can think 
of to comply with the law and trust our government. They trusted our 
government to give them DACA status to allow them to stay in the United 
States, and they trusted the Postal Service, in a matter of 2 weeks, to 
be able to deliver a letter.
  Yesterday I spoke to the USCIS Director, Francis Cissna, and I asked 
him about this. I said to him: There must be a way for us to 
acknowledge the obvious. These young people, in good faith, did 
everything we could ask of them to comply with the law, and now they 
have been rejected. Now they are subject to deportation because the 
Postal Service didn't do its job. I asked him: Are you prepared to at 
least reconsider this decision and give them a chance to renew their 
DACA status?
  He said he was aware of the situation and that it was being 
considered at the highest levels of the Department of Homeland 
Security.
  I raise this issue because real lives are at stake. These are real 
people. These are young men and women who are doing everything they can 
think of to become part of America's future. They are hiring lawyers, 
they are raising money, and they are filing the documents that are 
asked of them in the hopes they can stay in the United States of 
America, and the system is fighting them every step of the way. In this 
situation, this is totally unfair.
  Our government is better than this. Our people are better than this. 
Our values are better than this. I am pleading with the Department of 
Homeland Security and those who are seeking positions in that 
Department to show some common sense and a little bit of heart when it 
comes to these young people who are simply trying to make a future for 
themselves and a better United States of America.