[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 199 (Wednesday, December 6, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H9669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         DACA RECIPIENTS LOSE THEIR PROTECTION FROM DEPORTATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, every day that Congress does not pass the 
Dream Act, 122 DACA recipients lose their protection from deportation. 
That is 122 every day--young people who arrived in the U.S. as 
children, have gone through multiple background checks, and have lived 
in the U.S. for at least 10 years.
  Every week that passes, nearly 1,000 DACA recipients lose their 
protection from deportation. By Christmas, the number of DACA 
recipients who will have lost protection will reach 13,492.
  But now we are hearing that we may have a short-term CR or a series 
of CRs and that the whole budget and funding debate may get kicked down 
the road to next year when all 800,000 young immigrants who signed up 
for DACA begin losing their status.
  Mr. Speaker, with Republicans in control of the House, Senate, and 
White House, I am pretty sure you will not need my vote to pass the 
next budget. So I will vote against any short-term CR because I assume 
you have the votes to govern as you see fit no matter how much I and 
other Democrats disagree with your priorities on women, on children's 
healthcare, the environment, or DREAMers.
  Now, if Republicans decide they do need help from Democrats to 
approve a budget, they know where to find us, and we are more than 
willing to help if what we are voting on meets minimal standards of 
priorities for the American people. For me and a lot of my colleagues, 
that means a vote on the Dream Act right now this year.
  The votes are here, the legislation is here, and the American people 
are already in support. So, Mr. Speaker, at some point, Republican 
leadership should just get out of the way and let America vote. That is 
what leadership, compromise, and bipartisanship look like.
  Now, we certainly know what it doesn't look like. In the middle of 
the night last weekend, Republicans voted to give a tax cut to the 
richest Americans. They dressed it up as a tax cut for all of us--for 
everyone--but we all know that it is an obscene tax cut for the 
obscenely wealthy and rich in America.
  Not a single Democrat in either House supported it. This chart 
explains part of the reason. It is tremendously unpopular with the 
American people as the small slice in red on this chart shows us. 
According to a Gallup poll, just 29 percent of Americans support 
the Republican tax cut for billionaires and the multinational 
corporations. That is what partisanship looks like.

  So what does bipartisanship look like? It looks like the Dream Act. 
Overall, 86 percent of Americans support the Dream Act, a bill to 
legalize immigration status of immigrants who arrived in the United 
States as children. Yes, 86 percent. That is a big slice of red on the 
chart. That number comes--get this--from a FOX News poll, just in case 
you think I was using a partisan poll where they put their thumb on the 
scale to show things in my favor. Sixty-three percent of Trump voters 
back citizenship for the DREAMers.
  So here is a proposal supported by an overwhelming number of people, 
an overwhelming number of Republicans, and an overwhelming percentage 
of Trump voters. But we can't get a vote. Yesterday, 34 Republicans in 
this body wrote to the Speaker asking him to please allow a vote and 
something to protect the DREAMers. Clearly, all 34 percent of those 
Republicans can read the chart in red. They want to do something that 
is both politically popular and the right thing to do from a moral 
standpoint.
  The reason Republican leaders will not allow a vote on the Dream Act, 
or at least are acting like they won't, is because they know it will 
pass. So you take 34 Republicans who wrote the Speaker and add 194 
Democrats, and do you know what you got? A majority of the House.
  For all of those Republicans who oppose the Dream Act, they get a 
Christmas present. They get to vote against it. What better way to 
associate yourself with the comments of your President on Mexicans, on 
Muslims, and on everything else than to vote against the Dream Act?
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge you to let your Members vote against the 
Dream Act as an act of charity in the Christmas spirit. Republicans 
will get what most of them want: an opportunity to send a message to 
their base voters by voting on something the rest of us agree on--just 
like the tax bill--but this time, with the passage of the Dream Act, at 
least a majority of the American people will get something out of it, 
too.

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