[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 197 (Monday, December 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7812-S7814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  DACA

  Madam President, the next topic I would like to address is something 
we refer to as DACA. This is the Deferred Action for Childhood 
Arrivals. Of course, this is a program that President Obama instituted 
because he decided to take an end-run around the Congress and tried to 
unilaterally provide relief to these young adults who came here as 
children with their parents illegally.
  Being a recovering lawyer and judge myself, I can tell you we don't 
ordinarily hold children responsible for the actions of their parents. 
So I believe the President's compassion was appropriately placed, but 
his fidelity to the Constitution and to Congress's role in coming up 
with a solution was misplaced. So it is now our chance to put the 
program where it belongs, which is back into the hands of Congress, 
working with the administration.
  As a result of what President Trump decided to do, which is to give 
this responsibility for a solution back to Congress, some of our 
Democratic friends are threatening to shut down the government this 
month, without an agreement on DACA. That is simply a hysterical and 
cynical ploy, putting their party and their agenda ahead of the Nation. 
How can you claim to care about the 800,000 undocumented immigrants 
this program protects through work permits and deportation relief, but 
then turn your back on the 322 million people who need to know that 
their government is still able to function? That is holding 322 million 
Americans hostage for their political desire to get a solution on their 
timetable--not on our timetable--and one that if we are successful and 
able to accomplish in January or February, will be done well in advance 
of the deadline in March of next year.
  Let's all remember the recent course of events. President Trump 
announced his decision to rescind DACA on September 5 but delayed the 
decision to take effect for 6 months, giving us a little time to 
approach this problem thoughtfully and carefully. The chairman of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee then convened a working group to study 
potential DACA fixes. Finally, last week, Republicans on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee offered an initial proposal which our Democratic 
colleagues rejected out of hand, refusing to even make a 
counterproposal.
  The proposal we made included border security, interior enforcement, 
improvements in the E-Verify system, and a path to legal status for 
DACA recipients and limits on certain types of chain migration. Members 
of the Republican caucus, including myself, indicated a willingness to 
continue to negotiate, saying this was our starting point, but we 
insisted that any proposed solution must include border security and 
interior enforcement measures.
  Now, as a result of our Democratic colleagues simply rejecting out of 
hand our initial offer and refusing to negotiate with us, it is fair to 
say those negotiations are currently at an impasse. By threatening to 
shut down the government, they are jeopardizing the future fate of 
those DACA recipients.
  We have heard the senior Senator from Illinois, the junior Senator 
from California, the junior Senator from Vermont all threaten to shut 
down the government unless they can get their way when they want to get 
their way sometime this month. Perhaps they are unaware of how dire 
this ongoing uncertainty is. I come from a State where there are some 
124,000 DACA beneficiaries, so I understand what is at stake, and I am 
committed to doing everything I can to helping provide them some 
relief, but it is not just my way or the highway. We are going to have 
to come up with a negotiated outcome that demonstrates our compassion 
for these young adults who came here as children through no fault of 
their own and now find themselves trapped.
  We need to make sure that, No. 1, we stop or limit as much as we can 
illegal immigration into the United States, that we enforce our laws, 
and make sure people do it the right way.

[[Page S7813]]

  We are the most generous nation in the world when it comes to legal 
immigration. Our country naturalizes almost 1 million people a year. We 
are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. That is 
what our colleagues across the aisle seem to have forgotten about. We 
will no longer be the great Nation we are if we fail to be a nation of 
laws.
  We need to address the root problems as well. We can't just every few 
years come negotiate a temporary patch to what is a larger 
problem. Among them are holes in our porous border. My own State has 
1,200 miles of common border with Mexico. We know that our Border 
Patrol and Customs officials are overwhelmed. There is outdated 
surveillance and detection technology and a lack heretofore of serious 
interior enforcement of our immigration laws. We know that our 
immigration courts are stacked up and badly in need of additional 
resources.

  By playing games and threatening to shut down the government unless 
our Democratic colleagues get what they want when they want and 
engaging in stunts to shut down the government, they are only hurting 
their own cause and the very individuals they claim to be protecting. 
They are engaging in destructive identity politics and turning their 
backs on the rest of the Nation.
  I hope that those young adults--the Dreamers, they are frequently 
called--whom I described earlier aren't fooled by the theatrics of 
those who claim to help them. We all want a legislative solution, and 
we can find one as long as we quit the game-playing and the stunts and 
we sit down and negotiate seriously to try to come up with an avenue of 
relief, one borne by typical American compassion for these young people 
who find themselves at a dead end and those who believe that we need to 
get to the underlying causes that caused them to be in this situation 
in the first place; that is, a lack of appropriate border security and 
enforcement of our immigration laws. We can do this if we quit 
grandstanding and quit engaging in these sorts of stunts, and I hope we 
will.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, we had a press conference in Chicago 
this afternoon, and several young people were there. One is named Zarna 
Patel. Zarna is a student at the Loyola University Stritch School of 
Medicine. She is from a family that came to the United States from 
India. They brought her here when she was 3 years old.
  When she was growing up, she didn't realize that she was 
undocumented. She thought she was just like everybody else in her 
classroom, standing up, pledging allegiance to that flag, and singing 
the national anthem. It was the only national anthem she knew. But then 
came high school, and she came to realize that she was different. She 
wasn't documented. She wasn't ``legally in America.''
  Well, she soldiered on with her life and did quite well. She 
graduated from college with a degree in science. She prayed and hoped 
the day would come when she could go to medical school. Loyola 
University in Chicago offered her--and others like her, who were 
protected by President Obama's Executive order known as DACA--an 
opportunity to apply for medical school. They didn't get quotas. It 
wasn't any kind of affirmative action program. It just said you can 
compete with all the other students. The word got out around America to 
those who were protected by President Obama's order that there was a 
medical school that would accept you if you were protected. The net 
result of that was over 30 were admitted. They are so extraordinary, 
some of the best. They were admitted to medical school, and she is one 
of them. It is a great story, really.
  She is realizing her dream to become a doctor, but there is a 
problem. The problem is that on September 5, President Trump decided to 
abolish DACA, the program that protects Zarna Patel, and in abolishing 
it--announcing that he would on March 5 of next year--it meant that she 
would then lose the protection she had under the previous Executive 
order.
  What difference does it make? Well, it means that she is then subject 
to deportation, but equally important in her life, she loses the right 
to legally work in America. You say that she is a student and maybe she 
doesn't need to work. Well, as a student, she doesn't qualify for any 
Federal assistance because she is undocumented, and as a student in a 
medical school, to further your education, you need a residency. We 
know a residency means an awful lot of hours of working in a hospital 
that is teaching you how to be a doctor and develop your specialty. So 
you can't have a residency if you can't legally work in America. That 
means that, after all of these years of work, it is over; she can't 
apply for a residency.
  The senior Senator from Texas came to the floor and said: Let's not 
have a hurry-up approach to this issue. Let's slow it down a little 
bit. The President announced on September 5 that he was going to 
abolish protection for Zarna Patel and for 780,000 others just like 
her. Here we are, 3 months later, having done nothing.
  Many of us feel a sense of urgency because these young people have 
their lives on hold. They are living with the anxiety and stress of not 
knowing whether they will be deported tomorrow or can work. It is a 
simple thing to many of us as we read about it. It is life and death in 
the future for these young people.
  So when we say to the Senator from Texas that we need to get this 
done, it isn't like the Senate is overwhelmed with work. I didn't have 
to come down here and beg for an opportunity to speak on the floor. You 
can see it is empty, and it has been empty most of the year. We have 
done precious little this year. I can point to three or four things the 
Senate has accomplished. We had plenty of time to address this and 
still do, but it takes a will on the part of the majority to get this 
done.
  I want to thank several Republican Senators who have stepped up to 
try to help me get this done, especially Lindsey Graham, a Republican 
of South Carolina and my cosponsor of the Dream Act, and other Senators 
who are sponsoring it and trying to move this forward. Senator Jeff 
Flake, last week, announced that his vote on the tax plan was 
contingent on a conversation he had with the White House about this 
issue of DACA and the Dream Act.
  The senior Senator from Texas comes to the floor and says I haven't 
really reached out to him or spoken to him about this. He must have 
forgotten that I handed him this sheet of paper last week. This was our 
proposal on border security in the hopes that, by being serious about 
border security, we could get Republican Senators to join us when it 
came to protecting those who qualified for DACA in the Dream Act. I 
gave this to Senator Cornyn. He knows it. I like him. He is my friend. 
But we have to reach the point where we realize that there is a sense 
of urgency here. I hear the Senator from Texas say: Well, maybe next 
year we will get around to it. As of March 5, this program ends, and as 
of March 5, 1,000 young people will lose their protection every single 
day for 2 years.
  What it means for Zarna Patel and others is the end of a dream, the 
end of an opportunity to pursue an education. She is not the only one. 
She is 1 of 30 or 32 at the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. There 
are 900 of these young people who currently have volunteered to serve 
in the U.S. military under the MAVNI Program. If we don't renew this 
program, they are gone. Think of that. They are technically 
undocumented and illegal in this country. They volunteered to risk 
their lives for America in service to our country. Now the Senator from 
Texas says: Well, we are in no hurry to tell them whether they can 
continue to serve in our military.
  As we look across America, we have 20,000 teachers. I met one of 
those last Friday in Chicago. She is 24 years old, teaching in an 
inner-city school, and protected by DACA. The minute DACA ends on March 
5 of next year, she can no longer legally work in the Chicago Public 
Schools system. She is finished. Pack up, clean out your desk, and go 
home.

[[Page S7814]]

  Is that what we want to see happen across America? We know what these 
young people are doing. They are going to school. They are working 
while going to school. They are teachers. They are nurses. They are 
involved as first responders and law enforcement. They are in medical 
school.
  The Senator from Texas questions why I am in such a hurry to get this 
done? I am in a hurry to get this done, and he should join me in 
understanding that there is a sense of urgency here. There are a lot of 
rumors flying around here. I am not going to honor any of them as to 
what might occur, other than to say, when we get Senators who are 
willing to sit down and accept the principle of the Dream Act, that the 
principle is that those who were brought here as children, who have 
grown up in the United States, who have no serious criminal charges in 
their records, and who have completed school have a chance to become 
legal and become citizens--that is the fundamental of the Dream Act.
  It is a bill I introduced 16 years ago. I am still trying to pass it. 
There are bills that are not identical but are very similar that accept 
that premise and have been offered twice by Republicans as well.
  So if the Senator from Texas will start with the Dream Act, we can 
then engage in additional conversations about border security. He can 
take the draft I gave him last week, which includes, incidentally, 12 
provisions from his own bill. The Senator from Texas had a bill drafted 
on border security. We read it. We picked up 12 of the major provisions 
and included them in our offer to try to get this done in an expedited 
way.
  I will just tell you this. If any Senators want to come to the floor 
and say it is not that important, it isn't timely, we need not hurry 
about this, we can get around to it later, I would like them to come 
home with me. Maybe they should even go home to their own States and 
meet with these young people and realize that their lives are on hold 
because we have put this issue on hold.
  For goodness' sake, let us face our responsibilities as Senators. 
Let's do what we are supposed to do--legislate solutions to problems. 
The President challenged us. He said: I am going to abolish this 
program; now Congress, you pass a law to create it. He challenged us. 
Let us accept the challenge and do it in a bipartisan professional way. 
That is all I have ever asked for and all I continue to ask for.
  Yes, I want it done this calendar year. I don't want excuses about 
maybe next January or maybe next February, because we know that on 
March 5, when the deadline hits, it will be a disaster for 1,000 of 
these young people every single day. Yes, there is a sense of urgency. 
Yes, there is a need for us to work together. I am going to continue to 
meet with Republican Senators and Democrats to find a solution, to find 
a way through this, and to get it done this month in December. How can 
we, in good conscience, pass a spending bill giving authority and 
resources to this administration to go out and arrest and deport these 
young people and not address the underlying issue of their legality and 
their future in the United States? That, to me, is obvious.
  I hope my colleagues, those of good will and good faith, will join me 
in making sure that we don't go home for the holidays until we get this 
job done.