[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 198 (Tuesday, December 5, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7825-S7826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  DACA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are facing a deadline of March 5, 2018. 
It was a deadline created by President Trump on September 5. That was 
the day he announced, through the Attorney General, that he was ending 
the DACA Program.
  The DACA Program was created by President Obama to give young people 
who were brought to this country as infants and toddlers and young 
children and who grew up in America and are currently undocumented a 
chance to earn their way to legalization and citizenship. That was the 
original Dream Act. When President Obama passed his Executive order, he 
protected them from deportation until Congress responded with a law. I 
asked for that designation and was thankful President Obama did it.
  As a result of his Executive order, 780,000 young people came 
forward, paid a filing fee of over $500, went through an extensive 
criminal background check, and were cleared to be given temporary 
protection from deportation and temporary opportunities to work in 
America, renewable every 2 years.
  President Trump came into office and ended it. He challenged Congress 
and said: Now pass a law to take care of this issue. It is a legitimate 
challenge for the President to issue. I wish he had done it 
differently, but it is certainly worthy of him to call on us to do our 
job.
  Well, here we are 3 months after that challenge from President Trump 
and what has the Republican majority done in the Senate or the House to 
respond to that challenge? Absolutely nothing--nothing, not one thing--
to provide these 780,000, as well as others who are eligible for this 
protection, an opportunity under law, not one thing.
  Is it because we have been overwhelmed with business? Well, I defy 
those who have followed the business of the U.S. Senate over the course 
of the last year to say that. It is seldom that we have ever come to 
the floor and debated anything of substance. Most of the time we are an 
empty Chamber lurching from one cloture vote to another cloture vote, 
to a motion to proceed to this nomination and that nomination. The 
exceptions, of course, were on healthcare and the Trump tax reform 
bill, and those were done by reconciliation; in other words, strictly 
partisan efforts.
  So we have not done much this year. We certainly haven't done much 
since September 5 of this year, and now what we hear from the other 
side of the aisle, from the senior Senator from Texas is, What is the 
hurry? We have plenty of time here. We will take care of these young 
people perhaps in January, perhaps in February. The deadline is March 
5.
  It is pretty easy for any Member of the U.S. Senate to say: What is 
the hurry, let's go slow, until they sit down and talk to the young 
people who are affected. I have done that many times, and I did it over 
this weekend.
  I went to Benito Juarez High School in the city of Chicago. A group 
of about 20 young people came forward, all of them protected by DACA. 
These young people started telling their stories of being brought to 
the United States at the age of 1 or 2, watching as some of their 
relatives have been deported, trying to grow up in America, uncertain 
of their future--really uncertain today as to what they are going to be 
doing--and many of them are extraordinarily talented young people. It 
is not uncommon for them to break down in tears as they tell their 
story.
  One was a 24-year-old graduate of college who received no Federal 
assistance because she is one of the Dreamers and undocumented. She 
finished college. She is now teaching in the Chicago Public School 
System. If she loses DACA protection, she loses her job as a teacher. 
There are tens of thousands just like her across America.
  The senior Senator from Texas asks: What is the hurry? Why do we need 
to address this issue?
  I wish that Senator could have been there and watched her and spoken 
to

[[Page S7826]]

her, as I did, and realized she is living in fear, in terror; that her 
life as she knows it could end tomorrow--and it could--because of the 
decision by President Trump to end this protection.
  All we have asked for--and many of us on a bipartisan basis--is to 
call up the Dream Act for a vote in the U.S. Senate, to give these 
young people a chance of the protection of law so they can continue in 
this country.
  Some Republicans have said we need to sit down and talk about border 
security. I said I would be happy to do that. When I was part of the 
Gang of 8, we came up with comprehensive immigration reform, and we had 
an extensive border security plan. Some of the Republican Senators who 
offered it told me later: We went overboard and you accepted it. We 
did. We are serious about border security. That is not an issue, but 
for the senior Senator from Texas, that is not good enough.
  I handed him a sheet of paper last week, and I have a copy of it 
right here, showing him the proposals we are making on border security. 
I pointed out to him that 12 of the proposals I handed to him were 
proposals from his own bill for border security. We are serious about 
this. This is a genuine effort to give border security provisions the 
enactment of law along with the Dream Act.
  So what we hear is that the senior Senator from Texas came to the 
floor and said: Well, they are just not negotiating in good faith. 
Well, I have handed him this provision, this proposal. It was a good-
faith gesture and a good-faith effort to move us forward, and the only 
response we had yesterday from the senior Senator from Texas is: What 
is the hurry? Why should we get it done this year? Why don't we wait 
until next year?
  Well, next year, as we know, means waiting 2 months when it comes to 
this issue, and that, to me, is the real fear I have--that we will put 
this off. The uncertainty, the worry, the stress for these young people 
will continue while we do nothing--nothing.
  We don't enact laws here. We do nothing. We give speeches to an empty 
Chamber and say: Gosh, I wish we had a little more time here to really 
do some substantive work. We have all the time we need.
  I would commend to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, for 
goodness' sake, when 76 percent of the American people agree with the 
Dream Act, when 61 percent of Trump voters agree with the Dream Act, 
there is no excuse. We need to make it the law of the land.

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