[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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