[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 180 (Tuesday, November 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6504-S6505]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, today the Supreme Court heard arguments 
in one of the most consequential immigration cases in modern American 
history. The future of more than 700,000 DACA recipients--our Nation's 
Dreamers--hangs in the balance and their fate is inherently intertwined 
with the fate of the American Dream itself.
  Dreamers, by definition, are law-abiding immigrants brought to the 
United States as children--through no choice of their own--now simply 
seeking the chance to contribute to the only country they have ever 
known as home. Dreamers, by definition, do not pose any kind of public 
safety or national security threat. They are our neighbors, our first 
responders, our defenders, and our teachers. Nearly a thousand Dreamers 
serve in our Armed Forces, risking their lives to preserve the freedoms 
of millions of American citizens. Dreamers are Americans in every way, 
except on paper. Americans know this, and have roundly rejected the 
baseless, un-American vitriol spread by President Trump--yet again this 
morning, just hours before the argument--that some Dreamers are 
``hardened criminals.''
  So it is no wonder that the overwhelming majority of Americans 
support providing legal protections to our Nation's Dreamers. And it is 
no surprise that leaders of industry in every major sector of our 
economy have called for providing legal status and a path to 
citizenship for Dreamers, recognizing their enormous contributions to 
our economy.
  The depth of opposition to President Trump's decision to heartlessly 
terminate DACA is matched only by the breadth of agreement among courts 
that the Trump administration is just plain wrong on the law. Five out 
of six Federal courts that considered the Trump administration's effort 
to end DACA blocked President Trump from actually doing so and they 
have rejected the Trump administration's laughable argument that its 
decision to end DACA is simply unreviewable by the courts.
  I am hopeful that the Supreme Court sides with the near unanimous 
consensus among lower courts. I am hopeful that it joins the united 
chorus of Americans who envision a legally protected place in our 
society for this group of immigrants that embodies the American dream.
  Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, Congress is by no means a 
bystander. Congress still has the authority and the responsibility to 
do what is right. Just a few months ago, the House passed a bipartisan 
bill, the American Dream and Promise Act, which would enact critical 
protections for Dreamers and provide temporary safe haven to targeted 
groups of immigrants whose home countries have been crippled by natural 
disasters or civil conflict. The Senate could easily take up this bill 
today or it could take up the bipartisan Senate bill, the Dream Act of 
2019, authored by Senators Graham and Durbin, which would provide

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meaningful safeguards to our Dreamers. Either way, Senate inaction is 
simply not acceptable to the millions of Americans in both parties who 
see the prospect of mass deportations of Dreamers as antithetical to 
who we are as the United States of America.
  As we wait for our Nation's highest Court to rule on this case, it is 
essential for Americans to express their views about the future of 
Dreamers to their elected representatives. This case, after all, is not 
just about the specific Dreamers who would benefit from DACA's 
continued existence, and it not just about the Trump administration's 
anti-immigrant impulses and policies. This is about whether our proud 
past as a nation of immigrants and refugees--a country that became one 
out of many--has a bright future. That future should not be left solely 
to the courts nor should it be left to languish in Majority Leader 
McConnell's legislative graveyard. This future will be shaped, in part, 
by what we choose to do now, in the present and it is beyond time for 
the Senate to come together and do what is right.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer following statement was ordered to be 
printed in the Record.)

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