[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2869-S2871]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  DACA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on September 5, 2017, President Trump 
announced the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 
Program, known as DACA. As a result of that, hundreds of thousands of 
immigrants who came to the United States as children and are known as 
Dreamers have faced losing their work permits and face deportation to 
countries they barely remember.
  DACA provided temporary legal status to Dreamers only if they 
registered with the government, paid a fee of almost $500, and passed a 
thorough criminal background check. This DACA Program has been a 
success. More than 800,000 Dreamers have come forward and received DACA 
protection, which has allowed them to become a part of the only country 
they have ever called home.
  Many of these Dreamers were brought here as infants and toddlers, 
raised in this country, pledging allegiance to that flag. They believed 
they were part of America, and usually at some point when they became 
teenagers, their parents gave them the terrible news that they were 
undocumented.
  When President Trump decided 8 months ago to repeal DACA, he set 
March 5 as the deadline for the final expiration of the DACA Program. 
However, two Federal courts have stepped in and issued orders blocking 
the President's repeal of this DACA executive order. This means that 
Dreamers who have DACA can continue to apply to renew their status for 
now.
  I urge every DACA recipient to file their renewal application 
immediately. The Trump administration is doing everything in its power 
to fight this court protection, and that court protection could be 
lifted any day. This means there is a need for Congress to do 
something.
  Again, I urge the Republicans who control Congress to immediately 
pass the Dream Act--bipartisan legislation I first introduced 17 years 
ago that would finally give these Dreamers a path to becoming citizens 
of the United States.
  The reality is that tens of thousands of Dreamers are already at risk 
of losing their work permits and being deported. The Department of 
Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, has promised me that her 
Department will not deport any DACA recipient with a pending DACA 
application, even if their status expires. I am going to hold her to 
that commitment because lives hang in the balance.
  However, for DACA recipients whose status has expired, the Department 
will not authorize them to work unless and until their DACA is renewed. 
This means that tens of thousands of DACA-eligible individuals could be 
forced to leave their jobs while their applications are pending and 
before the renewals are approved.
  Then consider the fate of Dreamers who are eligible for DACA but 
never quite reached that status. They can no longer apply for 
protection because of President Trump's decision to prohibit new DACA 
applications after September 5, 2017. For example, a child turning 15--
the youngest age at which you can apply for DACA--is now blocked from 
applying. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that in 
addition to 800,000 DACA recipients, there are an additional 1 million 
Dreamers who are eligible. Thanks to President Trump's harsh decision 
to end DACA, 1.8 million Dreamers are at risk of deportation and cannot 
work to support themselves or contribute to the country they love.

[[Page S2870]]

  On September 5, Trump called on Congress to ``legalize DACA.'' But 
since then, he has rejected six bipartisan proposals to achieve that. 
He has even rejected a $25 billion bipartisan offer to build his border 
wall. Mexico, of course, was supposed to pay for that wall.
  We provided the money in a bill that also provided protection for the 
Dreamers. The President rejected it. Instead, he has tried to put the 
entire hard-line immigration agenda on the backs of the Dreamers. 
President Trump has said that he will support legalization for Dreamers 
only if Congress passes his plan, which would, among other things, cut 
legal immigration to the United States by more than 40 percent.
  There are people within this administration and some within the 
Senate who really despise immigrants, and you can see it. They want to 
cut legal immigration to the United States. That would be the largest 
cut in immigration in almost 100 years.
  Earlier this year, the Senate decided to vote on President Trump's 
plan--the one he supports. It failed; it failed badly when 39 Senators 
voted for it, and 60 voted against it. President Trump is holding 
Dreamers hostage to an immigration plan that is so extreme that many of 
his own party members do not support it.
  Over the years, I have come to the floor of the Senate more than 100 
times to tell the stories of Dreamers. I could give these speeches 
endlessly. I don't think they have the impact of coming to know the 
young people who are engaged and involved and at risk in this political 
debate.
  This is Dalia Larios, the 114th Dreamer I have introduced on the 
floor of the Senate. She was brought to the United States from Mexico 
when she was 10 years old. She grew up in Mesa, AZ. She remembers 
celebrating the Fourth of July, going to school dances, and of course, 
watching the Super Bowl.
  Her parents were hard workers who usually had two or three jobs. They 
taught her that although there were many things she could not control, 
she could control how long she studied and how much time she devoted to 
school. She did; Dalia graduated from high school in the top 1 percent 
of her class. She was named the most outstanding life science student 
in school. Not only did she excel academically, she completed over 150 
hours of community service.
  She is a remarkable young woman. She started an after-school dance 
program for at-risk children and was the first place State champion in 
both French and constitutional debate.
  Dalia then attended Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State 
University. She majored in biological sciences--specifically genetics, 
cell, and developmental biology. She continued her community service 
volunteering as an English and biology tutor at a number of health 
clinics. Dalia graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA and received a number 
of awards, including the School of Life Sciences award for plant-based 
research on cervical and breast cancer vaccines.
  Today, Dalia is a fourth year medical student at Harvard Medical 
School. She is researching lung cancer and lung transplants at Brigham 
and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

  In 2016 she won the Robert Ebert Prize for Healthcare Delivery 
Research or Service for her work on designing a student-led health 
coaching program to improve health outcomes in complex diabetic 
patients, and what did she dream to be? A cardiothoracic surgeon.
  Dalia wrote me a letter. She said:

       For many, DACA may be a political bargain. For me, it is my 
     life. And [because of DACA,] for the first time ever, I have 
     been able to live a life that is not just rooted in dreams 
     but rather the realization of those dreams. It has been a 
     gateway to change, inclusion and meaningful integration into 
     the country I call home and desperately hope to serve.

  At least 65 additional Dreamers were enrolled in medical school this 
last school year, but without DACA these Dreamers could be deported 
back to their countries, where they haven't lived since they were 
little kids. Will America be a stronger country if we ask Dalia to 
leave--this Harvard Medical School graduate, who wants to be a 
cardiothoracic surgeon? If we tell her, ``We don't need you; go to some 
another country,'' are we better off for that? Of course, not. We are 
stronger to have people like Dalia in the United States.
  The Association of American Medical Colleges states that the Nation's 
doctor shortage is going to continue. Both the AMA and the Association 
of American Medical Colleges have warned that ending DACA could make it 
even harder to deal with the physician shortage in the United States. 
They caution that President Trump's reversal in policy ``could have 
severe consequences for many in the health care workforce, impacting 
patients and our nation's health care system.''
  I personally think it would be a tragedy to deport someone like 
Dalia, who has so much to contribute to America.
  President Trump created the DACA crisis. Instead of working toward a 
solution, he has sabotaged every effort we have made to support and 
save the Dreamers. Now it is up to the Republican majority in Congress 
to accept one of the six bipartisan solutions on the table to save 
these young people.
  Congress should do its job and make the Dream Act the law of the 
land, or we are going to be responsible for the fate of wonderful young 
women like this. This amazing young woman could be saving lives in 
America as a surgeon, or we can deport her back to Mexico. What sense 
would that make?
  Currently, the U.S. House of Representatives is debating when and if 
to return to the immigration debate. It is fortunate that 20 
Republicans have had the courage to step up so far, and I hope more 
will join them to say: We have to do something. We can't just let this 
happen without an effort to pass a bill to solve the problem.
  The same thing could be said of the Senate. That is why I am hoping 
that at the end of the day, we can put this kind of Dream Act and DACA 
bill back into active consideration on the floor of the Senate.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1615

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, as in legislation session, I ask unanimous 
consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 1615; that the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this is an 
issue on which Congress needs to act. Congress does, in fact, have 
authority to pass laws governing immigration and naturalization within 
our system, but this particular unanimous consent request represents an 
attempt to pass a major piece of legislation without any opportunity 
for debate, any opportunity for input from the American people, or any 
opportunity for amendments by individual Members. If we pass it this 
way, we will be cutting the American people out of the debate.
  Moreover, we also need to address the draws for illegal immigration. 
If we are going to address the needs of those who have been brought 
here unlawfully by no fault of their own while they were infants or 
minors, we need to make sure that we are not going to continue to draw 
people in unlawfully and that we are not going to continue to have 
people in various parts of the world sending their children here 
unlawfully, unaccompanied on many occasions and being subjected to 
sexual assault and all other kinds of abuse in the process. We do need 
to fix the underlying problem.
  For that reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am just going to respond briefly.
  The bill that I asked to be called today for a vote was debated at 
length over a period of 17 years with numerous committee meetings. This 
is not an open-ended bill. There is a deadline. To qualify for it, one 
must have been in

[[Page S2871]]

the United States already for over a year. So it would not be a magnet 
for those who would like to come and take advantage of it in the 
future. It wouldn't apply to them, but it does apply to 1.8 million who 
would be eligible for citizenship.
  I am sorry that there was an objection, but I will continue to work 
with Members on both sides of the aisle to resolve this. We owe it to 
Dalia and to many others like her who are waiting for Congress to act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The Senator from North Carolina.