[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 11 (Thursday, January 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S282-S283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              DACA AND TPS

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, the Dreamers are part of this country. 
They are America's future. They are helping to build this great Nation, 
and they need our attention now.
  The Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. 
One of their principal responsibilities is to pass a budget. We are now 
4 months into the fiscal year and we don't have a budget and we are 
talking about another continuing resolution through mid-February.
  A couple weeks ago, we were told on the floor to give it a couple 
more weeks and we would work some of these issues out, but that time 
has now come, and we still do not have a budget. We should not be going 
into February without dealing with the problems of this country. We 
need a deal on the budget. We need a deal for an agreement on the 
Dreamers. We have so many issues that need to be addressed. There is no 
excuse why the Republican leadership has not brought these issues to 
the floor of the Senate for action.
  I want to start, in regard to the Dreamers, by commending the 
bipartisan work of a group convened by Senators Graham and Durbin. They 
have come up with a good plan that addresses key issues needed for a 
compromise on immigration reform. I was pleased to see they put on 
their website a summary of the proposed legislation that deals with the 
Dreamers. It deals with border security, deals with diversity visas, 
those who are in temporary protective status, and family reunification 
and migration.
  The draft legislation we saw would provide a 12-year pathway to 
citizenship for Dreamers, with up to 2 years of credit for time with 
DACA. The qualified Dreamers must have entered the United States by 
June 15, 2012, when President Obama and the Department of Homeland 
Security announced the creation of the DACA Program. I think most of us 
know DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program.
  Let me just talk a few minutes about the Dreamers. These are 
individuals who entered our country as minors, when they were brought 
here by their parents to seek a better life. Under the DACA Program, 
they were entitled to a 2-year renewable work permit and the ability to 
remain in this country without fear of deportation. Each one has to go 
through a criminal background check. They need to be enrolled in 
school. They must either be high school graduates or in the U.S. 
military.
  In the United States today, we have 800,000 who are registered under 
the Dreamers. There are about 10,000 in my State of Maryland, and they 
are contributing half a billion dollars to Maryland's gross domestic 
product. They are a key part of our economy. They are the next 
generation of teachers, doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs. They are 
going to help build America. Most know no other country but the United 
States, which is their home, and our values, which make America the 
great Nation it is.
  We are a welcoming country. We are a country in which people have 
come over the years to build this great Nation. That is America's 
strength. Let us build on our strength, not run away from it. Are we 
going to turn our back now on the values that built this country? Are 
we going to rip families apart? Is that what America stands for? I find 
that hard to imagine.
  At the same time, we would hurt our economy and hurt ourselves. I 
have met with many Dreamers in Maryland. We had one in my office a few 
weeks ago who had tears in her eyes. She said: I have an expiration 
date on my back. She doesn't know what is going to happen when that 
date occurs. To me--and I hope to all Americans--this country is not a 
country where someone should have to live under those fears. We need to 
take action to help the Dreamers.
  I have had several roundtable discussions with Dreamers in Maryland. 
I had them in College Park, Baltimore, and other areas throughout 
Maryland. Let me just mention two Dreamers I met with. Adam was 
originally born in Canada. His family grew up in Pakistan. He came to 
the United States with his parents when he was very young. Becky--who 
was born in Peru--came here with her parents to the United States. I 
mention them collectively because they both attend the University of 
Maryland, College Park.
  Our State allows Dreamers to have instate tuition to go to college 
and get the tools they need in order to succeed. They need work permits 
because they have to work; otherwise, they never would have been able 
to get through school. They need a driver's license. Adam explained to 
me he needed a driver's license to get to a magnet school so he could 
advance his own education.
  That was all possible--the ability to get a driver's license and the 
ability to work--because of President Obama's Executive order, the DACA 
Program. Now all of that has been put in doubt because of President 
Trump's announcement that the program will end. It puts their lives on 
hold in fear, and they wonder whether they need to go into the shadows 
of the United States of America.
  This is a crisis which was created by President Trump when he 
announced the end of the DACA Program in 6 months. That will expire in 
March. President Trump's actions to rescind the DACA Program are wrong. 
We can correct it. That is what Congress can do and what we must do.
  Our university community in Maryland strongly supports the DACA 
Program. I have heard from the University of Maryland system, Johns 
Hopkins University, and many other schools in our State. This fall, I 
received a joint letter from the public school secondary systems of 
Prince George's County, Anne Arundel County, Howard County, Montgomery 
County, and Baltimore City. This is what the school superintendents 
wrote to me:

       Maryland is a national leader in providing students with a 
     world-class education. Essential to our success is our 
     commitment to providing children in our schools with a safe 
     and welcoming environment to learn. Termination of DACA will 
     have direct and damaging effects on the Maryland students who 
     are current beneficiaries.

  The schools' letter continues:

       It is a direct threat to Maryland's economic stability and 
     safety, as it will strip students of their ability to work 
     and drive legally, pay taxes, and pursue post-secondary 
     opportunities. Parents who lose work authorizations will face 
     deportation or be moved into a dangerous underground economy, 
     causing financial uncertainty for their families and harmful 
     stress on their children--our students.
       In addition, the DACA decision could impact our ability to 
     motivate our youth to remain committed to their education and 
     pursuing college or careers, and will lead to worsening 
     economic hardships of our DACA community.

  This is from our school systems in Maryland.
  I heard similar concerns from law enforcement officials. Tom Manger, 
who cochairs the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force and is the 
police chief in Montgomery County, wrote:

       Our support for a legislative solution for Dreamers is 
     consistent with our longstanding support for bipartisan 
     reform of our immigration system. We support measures 
     allowing law-abiding people to feel safe and secure in their 
     communities, which reinforce trust and cooperation with state 
     and local law enforcement. Beyond the significant 
     contributions Dreamers make to our communities, we are 
     concerned that, absent action by Congress, the Dreamer 
     population will be driven back into the shadows and be 
     hesitant to report crimes and cooperate with investigations. 
     Such an outcome would risk undermining community safety. When 
     Dreamers, and all immigrants, feel safe engaging with local 
     police, all of our communities are safer.

  I certainly agree with Chief Manger.
  A group similar to the Dreamers are those who are here in temporary 
protected status, or TPS. There are 437,000 people in America from El 
Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia,

[[Page S283]]

Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. In Maryland, 22,500 people are 
here from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. The largest number is from 
El Salvador. Our TPS population in Maryland exceeds the DACA 
population. My own State's recipients contributed $1.2 billion to the 
gross domestic product of my State, so this is a major part of the 
Maryland economy.
  This is a very similar situation to the Dreamers. They get a 6- to 
18-month extension. They have been here for decades because the 
underlying conditions in the countries from which they came still 
exist. I have been to Central America. I can tell you that it is not 
safe for people to return to those gang communities. They have the same 
situation--they know no other country but America. If they are required 
to go back to the country in which they were born, it will tear 
families apart. We need to act. We need to act in order to protect this 
group of citizens.
  I want to acknowledge legislation that was introduced. I join my 
colleagues, Senators Van Hollen, Feinstein, and others, who will 
provide a legislative fix, S. 2144, the SECURE Act. I am pleased that 
the outline of the Durbin-Graham compromise immigration legislation 
includes relief for TPS recipients. The legislation will make changes 
to the diversity visa lottery program and reallocate half of the annual 
visas to recipients of TPS. That would amount to about 27,000 visas 
annually.
  Under the draft, TPS recipients would maintain legal status and work 
authorization while awaiting visas. This would give TPS recipients 
protection from deportation, work authorizations, green cards, and 
ultimately a pathway to citizenship. After the TPS backlog is cleared--
which could take roughly a decade to do, given the 300,000-plus 
recipients of TPS in the United States today--the annual visas would be 
allocated to nationals of priority countries.
  In the past few months, the Department of Homeland Security has 
placed termination dates on TPS for those from El Salvador and Haiti 
and has extended the deadline for a decision on Honduras. These 
individuals are at risk. We need to act.
  Maryland has a large number of El Salvadorans. I am gravely concerned 
about what will happen to these individuals--many mixed-nationality 
families who have been part of American communities for so long. For 
nearly a decade, El Salvador has consistently suffered per capita 
murder rates that have been among the worst in the world. In 2016, the 
people of El Salvador were victims of over 5,200 homicides--an alarming 
rate of more than 80 per 100,000 and the highest globally. El Salvador 
has limited capacity to absorb the nearly 200,000 individuals who could 
be subjected to immediate deportation. We welcomed these individuals to 
America to save them from danger.
  As another example, although Haiti has made important strides toward 
reconstruction, its capacity to effectively manage repatriation efforts 
has faced substantial setbacks, including the continuing cholera 
epidemic and devastating hurricane in late 2016. Additionally, 
conditions in Haiti were further complicated by two category 5 
hurricanes--Irma and Maria, which struck in September. These recent 
developments exacerbate already fragile conditions in Haiti.
  As the Department of Homeland Security's own internal memorandum from 
April 2017 outlined, an estimated 30 percent of the population--
approximately 3.2 million people--suffer from food insecurity, and 40 
percent of the population lacks access to fundamental health and 
nutrition services.
  In other words, it is not safe for those individuals to go back to 
Haiti. They have been here. This is their home. They want to make this 
their home, and we should give them that opportunity.
  Let me conclude by again quoting Becky, one of the Dreamers I met at 
the University of Maryland, College Park. She said that the best 
present she ever got was on her 13th birthday when President Obama 
executed the Executive order that gave her legal status and hope here 
in America.
  Well, we can give her an even better present right now. We can give 
her the present of Congress acting to provide protection for the 
Dreamers and for those on TPS so they don't have to worry again and 
they know they have a home here in America.
  I urge my colleagues to pass legislation that will protect the 
Dreamers and TPS.
  Mr. President, I certainly hope we will do the minimum that the 
Congress of the United States can get done, and that is to pass a 
budget before the deadline of tomorrow evening.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blunt). The Senator from Hawaii.

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