[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 131 (Wednesday, July 30, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4889-S4890]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  DACA

  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, my colleagues, it feels like every single 
day the Trump administration finds new ways to defy the rule of law.

[[Page S4890]]

  They will tear families apart, decimate local businesses, and deceive 
the public in order to distract from their own failures and scandals. 
And nowhere has this been clearer than in their cruelty toward 
immigrants.
  As I have said time and again, this administration is not really just 
focused on cracking down on dangerous, violent criminals. We hear that 
from them all the time. But in practice, it is far from that.
  If it was just deportation operations focused on dangerous, violent 
criminals, there would be no discussion, there would be no debate, and 
there would be no disagreement. But that is not what this 
administration is doing. They are going after all immigrants.
  The vast majority of those who have been arrested and detained, and 
many of those deported--many without due process before being 
deported--are not convicted criminals. Don't just take my word for it. 
These are statistics and data coming out of ICE themselves, the 
Department of Homeland Security.
  But through their indiscriminate raids, this administration is 
arresting not just undocumented immigrants but lawful permanent 
residents as well. There are U.S. citizens who have been arrested and 
detained, even veterans. Think about that: individuals who have served 
our country, prepared to pay the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our 
Nation and our democracy, now being rounded up indiscriminately.
  If you think I am exaggerating with this concern, let the comments 
coming out of the Department of Homeland Security just yesterday leave 
no doubts. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declared for 
the first time--now, I want to make sure I get this right, so I am 
going to quote:

       Illegal aliens who claim to be recipients of DACA are not 
     automatically protected from deportations.

  She went on to say that DACA recipients should now self-deport from 
the United States. Think about what that means. The Trump 
administration is saying that these young adults who were brought to 
the United States as children and who have lived here, who have studied 
here, and who have worked here legally--let me emphasize that: worked 
here, studied here, lived here legally since the year 2012, thanks to 
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, this administration is 
saying now that they have no right to be here; that they could be 
deported or maybe should be deported at a moment's notice; or, worse, 
that they should choose to leave their families and their communities 
for countries that they have never known.
  The whole point of DACA is protection from deportation. These are not 
criminals or some danger to society; these are young people who have 
lived in the United States for as long as they can remember. These are 
young adults who, as kids, were on your Little League team or in your 
Girl Scout troop. For God's sake, they are part of our communities, and 
they are young adults who have now grown up to be lawyers, to be 
doctors, to be teachers, and who have more love for everything that 
this country stands for than anyone threatening them in Trump's 
Department of Homeland Security. But this week the Trump administration 
is now telling them that they should be arrested and thrown out of the 
only home they have ever known in an attempt to satisfy Donald Trump's 
quest for political points or an arbitrary quota.

  So, to the Trump administration, let me say this: You cannot claim to 
love our country at the same time you are trying to destroy our future.
  Already, this administration has worked to cut healthcare for 
millions of Americans, including DACA recipients. They are cutting 
education benefits and opportunities for DACA recipients, but now they 
are threatening to arrest DACA participants as well. That is exactly 
what has been happening in my hometown of Los Angeles when, last month, 
masked immigration officials--unidentified and masked immigration 
officials--carrying weapons, raided a carwash in Temple City. It was 
there that they confronted and arrested Javier Diaz Santana. Let me 
tell you about Javier, and I really, really hope you are listening not 
just with your ears but with your hearts.
  Javier Santana is 32 years old. He is a DACA recipient. He is deaf. 
And he has been working at a carwash 6 days a week for the last 5 
years.
  Immigration officials confiscated his identification. They 
confiscated his cell phone. They proceeded to handcuff him, put his 
hands behind his back in handcuffs, leaving him no way of 
communicating. You need to be able to use your hands to communicate 
with sign language. They deprived him of his ability to communicate.
  This young man was a DACA recipient who has been in the United States 
since he was 5 years old. He has no criminal record. His immigration 
removal case has been closed, and he was issued a work permit by USCIS. 
He is a son. He is a brother. He is a friend. Colleagues, he is a human 
being--just one of many cases.
  So don't tell me the Trump administration is following the law when 
we hear cases like this, and don't tell me that the administration is 
only targeting dangerous, violent criminals because the data proves 
otherwise.
  As his family was scrambling to find details about where he was, 
where he had been taken, DHS quickly whisked Javier out of Los Angeles, 
all the way to El Paso, TX. His family feared that he could be deported 
or he had been deported, not only to a country he doesn't know but to a 
country whose language he doesn't speak.
  But as tragic and as heartbreaking as Javier's story is, he is not 
alone. There have been more and more stories of DACA recipients being 
arrested and detained. And the fear is just growing across communities.
  One thing is certain: This mass detention and deportation operation 
will go down in our history as a stain, a dark chapter in our Nation's 
history, an outrageous moral failure intentionally caused by this 
administration--because for all the tough talk, this is not just 
politics as usual.
  In fact, when the DREAM Act was first introduced over 20 years ago, 
it was bipartisan, and it enjoyed bipartisan support for most of the 
last 20 years. And even today, polling shows an overwhelming majority 
of the American public supports DACA recipients--yes, both Republicans 
and Democrats across the country.
  Now, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have supported the DREAM 
Act for most of the last 20 years. And I think, in our private 
conversations, I sense the bipartisan support is still there, and I 
can't wait for it to resurface. Let the public statements be on both 
sides of the aisle--the political will on both sides of the aisle--
reflect what we are saying behind closed doors because the only thing 
that we are seeing publicly is the Trump administration going out of 
their way to enact a policy of cruelty. But it is exactly what we have 
come to expect 6 months into this administration--using immigrants as 
scapegoats for the administration's failures, the administration 
creating a spectacle in their attempt to distract and deflect.
  But make no mistake, Americans will not soon forget what this 
administration is doing to their neighbors--to their neighbors, to 
their coworkers, to their friends.
  Now, this story doesn't end the way you think it might because we 
will continue fighting not just to stop these outrageous arrests, but 
we will not rest until we enact real and permanent protections for DACA 
recipients who contribute so much to our country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from Vermont.

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