[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 96 (Monday, June 8, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2654-S2656]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I met a woman at a hearing, from Chicago, 
which I am honored to represent. Her name was Marimar Martinez.
  On a Saturday morning, last October, Ms. Martinez decided she had 
some spare clothes that she was going to take to her church to give to 
people who needed clothing. She got in her car on Kedzie Avenue and was 
driving along, when she ran into a group of ICE agents, who stopped 
her.
  She is Hispanic and appears to be Hispanic, and they decided to 
question whether or not she was in America legally. She had committed 
no crime, violated no law. She was just driving, looking Hispanic, 
which was enough for them.
  Before it was all over, she was driving away from the scene and was 
shot five times by the ICE agents. How this woman survived, I will 
never know, but she did. And, of course, she had to go through a lot of 
hospitalization and a lot of trouble. But she insisted to the ICE 
agents that she had never violated the law.
  And when it was all over, they sought her out at a hospital and 
arrested her and then, within days or weeks, dropped all charges. They 
argued, in the original charge, that her car had crashed into one of 
the ICE agent's cars and therefore she had committed a criminal act.
  When it was all over, that car was removed from the scene and never 
produced again. They took it to New England, for goodness' sake, from 
Chicago so that no one could actually look to see if there was any 
damage on it. There wasn't.
  Marimar Martinez survived. It was nothing short of a miracle. She was 
swept up into this hysteria that President Trump started at his 
rallies, where he would get up and say over and over again: We have to 
stop these rapists and murderers and terrorists and the criminally 
insane and child predators who came across the border under the Biden 
administration. We are going to get them, and we are going to send in 
people to make sure that happens.
  In came the ICE agents. Did you happen to watch what happened in 
Minnesota? Did you notice the two innocent individuals who were 
protesting for sure but were not violating the law, who were shot down 
and killed in Minneapolis?
  That is what has happened here and what has led to what the 
Republican leader just described, the difference between Democrats 
here, Republicans there, about how we should handle this issue.
  Let me say here again what I have said many times. I was chair of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee. I am now the ranking Democrat. Immigration 
is one of our issues, and here is what I think is the bottom line I 
feel everyone agrees with--I hope they do. The bottom line is this: We 
should never knowingly allow a dangerous person to come into this 
country. Short declarative sentence: Never knowingly allow a dangerous 
person to come into this country.
  Second, if someone is in this country and wants to stay, wants any 
kind of legal status, and commits a dangerous crime, they are gone, no 
ifs, ands, or buts. They are gone.
  Third point, we need an orderly process at our border. We cannot 
accept all of the people in the world who want to immigrate to the 
United States at this moment. There has to be an orderly process.
  Those, I think, are the three basic principles that most Americans 
agree on. Some will disagree.
  But I come to this issue with a personal agenda. My mother was an 
immigrant to this country. She was brought here at the age of 2. Hers 
was a poor family from Lithuania that came to the land of opportunity--
East St. Louis, IL, where I was born and raised.
  My grandfather worked jobs that required manual labor, as immigrants 
do. They took jobs other people wouldn't consider. And here, the next 
generation produces a grandson who was elected to the U.S. Senate.
  That is my story. That is my family's story. That is America's story. 
We are a nation of immigrants--some brought here involuntarily, some 
came here voluntarily--and it has made us a great nation. I am proud of 
it.
  In my office just a few steps from here is my mother's naturalization 
certificate by my desk. I want everyone who comes to my office to know 
I am the proud son of an immigrant. I don't believe immigrants are 
inherently evil or bad. I think just the opposite--they are people who 
come here and work themselves to death so that their kids have a better 
life.
  We have now reached a mindset in this country that anyone who wants 
to come here is suspected of a crime or

[[Page S2655]]

dangerous conduct. We should do a background check for sure. But listen 
to what happened.
  I have been in the Senate for a number of years, and 20 years ago, I 
introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act basically said: 
If you were brought to the United States as a child, grew up in the 
United States, and have nothing serious in your background that raises 
any question; if you went to that school every day and pledged 
allegiance to that flag believing you were part of America, you deserve 
a chance to earn your pathway to citizenship.
  That is what the DREAM Act said.
  Lucky for me, one of my colleagues in the Senate by the name of 
Barack Obama was a cosponsor of my bill. Turns out he got a promotion 
from the Senate and became President of the United States.
  I wrote him a letter cosigned by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of 
Indiana, asking him by Executive order to try to create a mechanism 
like the DREAM Act that gave these kids brought to America a chance to 
earn their way to citizenship. He came up with something called DACA.
  Under DACA, these young people, if they would step forward and 
identify themselves to the government--they are undocumented--if they 
identify themselves to the government, if they were brought here as 
children, we would give them a chance. But the chance was simply this: 
You can legally work in the United States, and you won't be deported. 
Every 2 years, you have to apply for DACA again--every 2 years--pay a 
$600 fee every 2 years, and go through a lengthy criminal background 
check. If you pass it, you get DACA for another 2 years.
  Mr. President, 980,000 young people stepped forward in the United 
States to sign up for DACA. How are we doing with these people from 
DACA? Pretty good. They are teachers. They are nurses. They are 
doctors. They are policemen. They are serving in our military. They are 
proving the point they wanted to make: They love this country; they 
believe they are part of this country. They are not the problem. They 
have never been the problem.
  So what is the Trump administration doing to them? Denying them 
another opportunity to sign up for another 2 years. Their time is up. 
They are ready to do it, and they are holding them back. Sadly, they 
are deporting these young people who have done nothing wrong except try 
to prove themselves to be loyal Americans.
  So when you look at the environment here created by the Trump 
administration on the issue of immigration, you see overwhelmingly that 
you have to sit and listen to the whole story. Of every seven people 
who are arrested and deported by ICE under the Trump administration--
out of every seven, six of them have no criminal record. They are not 
the rapists and the murders and the terrorists. They are people who 
live next door to you. They go to the same church you go to. They are 
the ones who just took care of your sale at the convenience store. They 
are doing their thing in America, and they are not breaking any laws, 
and the Trump administration has said they still have to be deported. 
That, I think, is too much.
  When it comes to this debate over funding ICE, what the Republican 
leader--and he is my friend. John Thune is my friend from South Dakota. 
We disagree on a lot of politics. I respect him as a person. We 
disagree on this issue. And when he talks about these individuals who 
are involved with the ICE agents and Border Patrol and such and how 
they need to be funded, what he doesn't mention is we have already 
funded them for this year and last year.
  Do you know what the funding level is for those Agencies? It is more 
than the appropriation for the U.S. Marine Corps--more than the 
appropriation for the U.S. Marine Corps for these ICE agents who insist 
on wearing masks and don't want to be held responsible for what they 
are doing in the streets of Chicago and Minnesota and other places.
  I think it is reasonable to say to them: You should be held to the 
same standards as any law enforcement official in America.
  My State troopers in Illinois don't wear masks. The sheriff's 
deputies don't wear masks. The policemen in Chicago don't wear masks. 
They wear video cameras, which we are insisting that these ICE agents 
also carry. They have their names above their badges so that you know 
who they are and can hold them responsible for any misconduct.
  It is not unreasonable to do this. The Republicans say: No. We will 
make the rules.
  You probably saw--maybe you didn't; it was a Chicago occurrence, and 
we all saw it--when they broke down the door of a man's home and went 
in and said: You are undocumented. We are going to deport you.
  They dragged him out, and he was wearing a bathrobe. They took him 
out of the shower. It took 2 or 3 days to finally square it away. He 
was an American citizen. They had the wrong house. They had no warrant 
to tear down his front door; they did it anyway.
  That sort of thing should stop. ICE agents should play by the same 
rules as policemen, professional law enforcement all across America. 
That is what we feel on the Democratic side. We are getting nowhere on 
that issue on the Republican side.
  So I think the bottom line is this: We want a safe country, but we 
also have values. We don't want to mistreat people who are doing a good 
job in their lives and serving us in very important ways.
  I think about my State of Illinois and most other States, and we have 
a very serious problem finding caregivers in daycare centers for 
children, for disabled people, and certainly for our parents and 
grandparents who are in nursing homes and places. Who are those 
caregivers? Go in and take a look. Forty percent of them are 
immigrants. They are the ones who make sure your mom and your 
grandmother are treated with respect and have a chance for decent human 
treatment during the course of a day. We want them gone? Who is going 
to take their place? We know better. These are tough jobs. They don't 
pay an awful lot of money. These folks deserve a lot more than they are 
currently being paid.
  The reality is immigrants are critically important.
  The Farm Bureau is a very conservative organization in my State of 
Illinois. Politically, I know they are on the other side for most 
issues from me. But I always welcome them each year to hear what they 
have to say. They came to see me recently and talked about farm labor, 
migrant farm labor.
  There was a lady who has an orchard in Southern Illinois that is 
pretty well known for peaches and apples and the like. She said: 
Senator, I can't get the local high school kids to take any job at my 
orchard. I can't even get them to go to the fruit stand--and I put in 
an air-conditioner--to sell fruit to people who drive by.
  I have to deal--if I am going to deal with anybody--with migrant 
labor, people that I have known and who have worked for me for years. 
Now they are afraid to come to the United States. Will you help me?
  I said: I will try to help you if I can, but the bottom line is that 
they are scared, they are frightened of what is going to happen to them 
if they come to the United States.
  Is that a healthy thing?
  This lady said: I am not going to be able to keep this orchard for 
another year or two if I can't get workers to pick the fruit and sell 
the fruit as part of the operation.
  A lady from a dairy farm in Northern Illinois, hundreds of miles 
away--same story. She said: We don't have enough kids. We used to have 
a lot of kids in dairy farm families. We don't have enough kids 
anymore. We need migrant labor to come in and help us on the farm.
  That is part of America. It is a job that most people don't jump to 
take, but it is an important job and an important part of our future.
  So I would just say to my friend the Senator from South Dakota: We 
ought to be able to work this out--don't you think?--it seems to me, if 
we are reasonable.
  There are people like Stephen Miller, who works in the White House 
and advises the President. He doesn't like immigrants. I know Mr. 
Miller. I have worked on the other side of the table from him for a 
long time. I know what his values are. He just doesn't like them, and 
he is pretty clear about that. He inspires a lot of the conduct

[[Page S2656]]

coming out of the White House. But there are others sitting on the 
other side of the aisle, the Republican side, who I know feel 
differently who would be willing to sit down and work.
  Is it possible for a partisan U.S. Senate to write a comprehensive 
immigration bill that both sides agree on? The answer is clearly yes. 
There were eight of us, four Democrats and four Republicans. I was on 
the Democratic side with Schumer and a couple other Senators, and the 
Republican side was led by John McCain. We put together a comprehensive 
immigration bill and brought it to the floor, Democrats and 
Republicans, and passed it with over 60 votes.
  It can be done, but you have to have people who are willing to sit 
down and say: Let's be honest about it. Keep the bad guys out, but give 
those DACA kids, for example, a chance to be part of America's future.
  That is what I think is the middle ground most Americans would agree 
on. It is still something I think we should aspire to.
  I don't know where we are going next on this immigration matter, but 
I worry about what is going to happen to a lot of people that I 
represent in Chicago. They are so frightened in the Hispanic 
communities in Chicago that they have stopped going to church, and some 
won't send their kids to school. They are just afraid of what is going 
to happen--somebody is going to be arrested, somebody will be deported 
or, like Marimar Martinez, God forbid, be shot on the street because 
they look too Hispanic.
  That is the reality of where we are today. We are a better nation 
than that. We can do a better job than that. We can't leave the debate 
where it is: Who is in favor of law enforcement and who isn't?
  I am in favor of law enforcement. I certainly was in favor on January 
6 when the insurrectionists mobbed this Capitol and ran us out that 
door of the Senate because they were coming into this Chamber, rifling 
through our desks, aping for cameras. That was the reality. They 
attacked the law enforcement in this building that protected all of 
you, still protects you to this minute, and protects me and everyone 
else who works here--the Capitol Hill police. A hundred and forty of 
them were victimized by those insurrectionists.
  Some people are trying to rewrite history and say this didn't happen. 
They have a problem. It is called videotape. Videotape tells the story, 
and we all saw it.
  So let's respect law enforcement for the job they are doing. Let's 
not give them impossible tasks. Let's not ask them to wear masks, for 
goodness' sake, so people don't know who they are. America is better 
than that.

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