[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 29 (Monday, February 13, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S335-S337]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               DREAM Act

  Madam President, they say to me, to be an effective Senator, you have 
to be patient, but what I am about to describe tests that theory.
  It has been 22 years since I introduced the DREAM Act.
  The best chance we ever had to pass it came to mind as I listened to 
the Republican leader a few minutes ago talking about the horrors of 
fentanyl and drugs that are crossing our borders and recount the 
numbers of people who are showing up at our borders as well. It brought 
back my memory of something called the Gang of 8--four Democrats and 
four Republicans--including John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Senator Flake, 
Senator Rubio, Senator Schumer, Senator Bennet of Colorado, Senator 
Menendez, and myself. We worked for almost a year to put together a 
comprehensive immigration reform that was long overdue. It included 
border security at a level unseen in America ever. We were prepared to 
invest billions of dollars to make our border safe.
  We passed this bill with, I think, 68 votes here on the floor of the 
Senate. I thought, finally, after 30 years of talking about immigration 
and batting it back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, we are 
finally going to do something on a bipartisan basis. We took that 
measure and sent it over to the Republican-led House of 
Representatives. They refused to even consider it--refused to consider 
it.
  So when I hear concerns and complaints today that our border just 
isn't safe enough, I agree. But I ask those who are complaining: Where 
were you when we brought this bipartisan measure to the floor, which 
had so much enforcement in it and really would have given us a safer 
situation today and for years to come?
  We can do that again.
  I agree completely with Senator McConnell that the drug crisis in 
America is serious, not just in Kentucky but in my State of Illinois 
and in yours, too, and all across this Nation. I also understand that 
there are too many people presenting themselves at the border believing 
they are going to somehow find their way into this country.
  I have met with many of them who were brought on buses to the city of 
Chicago. You should hear their stories. These are not people who are 
out trying to deceive the system or cheat the laws of America. They are 
desperate people--desperate for the safety of themselves and their 
children, desperate for an opportunity to have hope and a future.
  You sit down with them and think: How could they be much different 
than my mother, who was an immigrant to this country at the age of 2? 
She came here with her family looking for a better life. She found it, 
and because she found it, I did too.
  That story is the story of America. Immigration is the story of 
America.

[[Page S336]]

The notion that some Republicans have that we will not accept one more 
immigrant is ridiculous and it is un-American, and it doesn't reflect 
the reality of the country we live in.
  Twenty-two years ago, I heard a story about a young lady, a woman, in 
the city of Chicago. She was from Korea. Her name was Tereza Lee. She 
came here on a visitor's visa, overstayed the visa, and was technically 
undocumented, illegal in the eyes of the law.
  Well, her father wanted to have a church. He wanted to be a Korean 
pastor of a church in Chicago. He never quite realized his dream, but 
he visited a lot of churches and dragged along his little daughter with 
him. While he was talking things over with pastors of these churches 
about what he might do, she would wander around the church and 
eventually get to the piano and sit down and start banging away at the 
keys.
  She wasn't very good to start with, but there was some promise there. 
She became part of the Merit School of Music program in Chicago. This 
is a program which is remarkable. A lady left a lot of money and said: 
Use that money to train kids in public schools to play musical 
instruments.
  Tereza Lee was one of those kids. She learned how to play the piano 
and became one of the best.
  The day came when she was finally urged to take a chance and apply 
for music school, and she did. She got to one of the questions on the 
application, out of high school, and the question was: What is your 
citizenship status.
  She said to her mother: What is it?
  Her mom said: We never filed any papers. I don't know.
  She said: What are we going to do?
  They said: We are going to call Durbin.
  So they called my office and got in touch with Clarisol Duque, who is 
my chief of staff and who was working on those cases at the time, and 
we checked the law.
  For this 18-year-old girl, the law was clear. She was illegal in 
America, and she had to leave for 10 years and then apply to come back 
in. It didn't seem right. She didn't make the decision to come to this 
country; her parents did. She did everything right once she got here 
and struggled with a family who didn't have a lot of money but managed 
to scrape by.
  Here she was, asking for a chance to continue her education from 
Chicago Public Schools to music school that might make a difference in 
her life. She was being told officially by the government: No, thanks.
  That is when I decided to introduce a bill called the DREAM Act, 22 
years ago. For more than 20 years now, hundreds of thousands of young 
people in this country have been waiting for Congress to pass this 
bill. I have been waiting too. Along the way, there have been some 
victories and some major setbacks, but through it all, one thing has 
remained steady and constant: the devotion of Dreamers to this country.
  Dreamers have woven themselves into the fabric of America. Many of 
them were brought here as babies. They grew up alongside other kids--
our kids. They pledged allegiance to the same American flag that we all 
do, and they did it in classrooms day after day.
  Over the past 22 years, Dreamers have given everything they can to 
America, again and again. They have served our Nation as doctors, 
teachers, members of the military, and other essential roles that have 
helped move America forward. That is why last week, I reintroduced the 
Dream Act, for what I hope is the final time and we can see its 
passage.
  I want to thank one person in particular, Senator Lindsey Graham. He 
has joined me again and again as my Republican cosponsor of this 
measure. I can never thank him enough.
  This legislation will finally provide permanent protections to every 
Dreamer who has grown up in America and earned their path to 
citizenship.
  More than 800,000 Dreamers have received protection from Obama's 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA. The 
President initiated that in 2012. That is quite a few years ago now. It 
was never meant to be a permanent solution. It was supposed to be a 
bridge until Congress finally acted on immigration.
  We are still waiting. What is more, there are thousands of other 
Dreamers who can never have the chance to apply for DACA protection. 
Instead, they have to be forced to remain in the shadows.
  Let me show you two to demonstrate this story. This is Karen and 
Judith, twin sisters. Theirs is the 132nd and 133rd Dreamer story I 
have told on the Senate floor. That is a lot.
  Karen and Judith were born in Durango, Mexico. They arrived in the 
United States when they were 2 years old, the same age as my mom when 
she came here as an immigrant. Their family settled down in Dallas. 
Growing up, their parents were loving and supportive.
  Karen and Judith faced some obstacles because they were undocumented. 
For instance, they didn't have health insurance, which meant doctor and 
dental appointments were reserved only for emergencies. By the time 
Karen and Judith reached high school, it became clear they would not be 
given the same opportunities as the kids they went to school with. They 
could only watch from afar as their friends got their drivers' 
licenses, traveled outside the country, and landed their first jobs.
  Karen and Judith were not in that category. They were undocumented. 
But despite their frustrations, they pushed onward. Let me tell you 
what happened.
  In addition to graduating salutatorian and valedictorian, Karen and 
Judith became Junior ROTC Academic Bowl national qualifiers, AP 
Scholars with Distinction, National Hispanic Scholars, National Honor 
Society inductees, and so much more. Really, their academic 
accomplishments I can't even start to list, but because of their 
immigration status, Karen and Judith could not apply for financial aid 
or scholarships at the colleges at the top of their lists.
  So upon graduating high school, they stayed close to home, where the 
two of them are currently attending Texas A&M. After they earn their 
degrees, both of them hope to pursue their careers in medicine.
  Do we need more medical professionals? The question answers itself.
  But for now, in their spare time, both sisters give back to their 
community when they can. Karen tutors schoolkids and provides in-home 
care for seniors, while Judith volunteers at a local hospital, as well 
as an interfaith immigration network.
  Really, that should be the end of their story for now, but it is not. 
You see, a couple of years ago, Karen and Judith's paths diverged--
twins though they may be--not by choice but because of our broken 
immigration system.
  What do I mean? In 2020, Karen and Judith submitted their 
applications for DACA, but they did so 1 day apart. A year or so later, 
Karen's application was approved. But before Judith even received a 
reply to her application filed 1 day later, a Federal judge in Texas, 
Judge Hanen, decided to hit the brakes for the DACA Program. He ruled 
that the USCIS could not approve any DACA applications after his 
decision.
  Judith has been living in limbo ever since that decision was handed 
down. She cannot legally work, and she has no idea what her future 
holds.
  Ask yourself a simple question: Would America be better if these two 
sisters were deported back to Durango, Mexico? Would it be any better 
if Karen and Judith are sent to a country they don't even remember? 
What about the more than 200,000 DACA recipients who worked on the 
frontlines of this pandemic--doctors, nurses, paramedics--would America 
be better without them?
  Of course not. We need Dreamers like Karen and Judith, and this 
Congress needs to do something to protect them.
  Think about this for a moment. Karen and Judith weren't even alive 
when I first introduced the Dream Act in 2001. While they have grown up 
and gone on to change their lives, Congress stood still and did not fix 
a broken immigration system.
  Even DACA, a temporary solution for Dreamers like Karen and Judith, 
endured one bad-faith attack after another. Republican Governors like 
Texas's Greg Abbott have led a relentless campaign to eliminate DACA 
and deport these two young women and disrupt the lives of hundreds of 
thousands of Dreamers in America.

[[Page S337]]

  Last October, the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling on DACA. The court 
kept protections in place for now for current recipients but sent the 
case back to the judge in Texas who has repeatedly ruled against the 
program--the same Judge Hanen.

  Just recently, nine Republican-led States asked that same judge to 
end DACA in their States all together. That would be a disaster for 
this country, not just in terms of the human costs but the economic 
costs and what it says about our values.
  DACA recipients and their households pay more than $5 billion in 
Federal taxes each year. That is money for repairing roads and bridges, 
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
  By enacting the Dream Act, we will increase America's GDP by nearly 
$800 billion over the next 10 years and create hundreds of thousands of 
jobs in the process.
  The bottom line is we can point fingers at other people, but this 
ball is in our court, and there are other immigration issues we should 
address. As Senator McConnell raised earlier, border security is one of 
them. We need to bring order to our Nation's border. We should never 
knowingly allow anyone dangerous to come or stay in this country, and 
we cannot absorb all the people in the world who want to become 
citizens or residents tomorrow. We have to have a thoughtful system 
that makes sense for America's future and our economy.
  It is worth noting that President Biden has made some progress. Even 
with the limitations of a woefully outdated immigration legal system, 
the Biden administration has developed a more efficient process that is 
starting to make a difference. That new process has helped reduce the 
number of migrant crossings from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela 
by roughly 97 percent. It is progress.
  But as I mentioned, Executive action can't get the job done on its 
own. Poll after poll shows that Americans of all stripes--liberal, 
conservative, Democrat, Republican, Independent--want Congress to do 
something instead of making speeches on the floor. In fact, one recent 
poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans--Democrats, 
Independents, and Republicans--support both protections for Dreamers 
and improving border security.
  I want to put that in writing. We are going to put together a bill 
that addresses border security and the future of the Dream Act, and we 
need to do it soon. If we learned anything from last year's election, 
it is that America wants us to come together on a bipartisan basis to 
make our Nation stronger, safer, more prosperous, and really reflect 
the values of the American people. I can think of no better place to 
start than the Dream Act.
  Let's work together to protect our brave young Dreamers from 
deportation and bring order to America's southern border. There is no 
other option.
  I yield the floor.