[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14275-14276]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, like the majority of Americans who 
supported the Democratic candidate for President in the most recent 
election, I was disappointed by the results. But last Wednesday, I 
publicly congratulated President-Elect Donald Trump. I believe the 
bedrock principle of America is that we select our leaders and then 
come together as a country to try to find common ground and move 
forward.
  On election night, the President-elect said:

       Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division. 
     To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across the 
     Nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one 
     united people.

  I agree with the President-elect's statement. During the campaign, 
President-Elect Donald Trump used incendiary and offensive language 
about immigrants and immigration. I condemned those remarks at the 
time. I remain concerned about their impact on our Nation.
  But all Americans have an obligation to give this incoming President 
a chance. I am hopeful that he will keep his promise of election night 
to bind the wounds of division, to bring our Nation together. If he 
does, I look for opportunities where we can work together. As a first 
step in bringing our Nation together, I hope Mr. Trump will change his 
rhetoric and his approach to immigration.
  As the President-elect knows, we are a nation of immigrants, and 
immigration makes us stronger. Like me, Mr. Trump is the son of an 
immigrant. When Mr. Trump takes the oath of office in January, the 
United States will have a First Lady who is an immigrant for only the 
second time in our history and for the first time since 1801 when 
President John Quincy Adam's wife, Louisa Catherine Adams, was the 
First Lady of the United States.
  During the campaign, Mr. Trump pledged to deport all 11 million 
undocumented immigrants, but in an interview with ``60 Minutes,'' he 
recently said he wanted to focus on deporting undocumented immigrants 
with criminal records. He acknowledged that millions of undocumented 
immigrants are ``terrific people.''
  I wish to speak for a few moments about some of those terrific 
people. These words are important to me. I listened to them carefully.
  It was 15 years ago when I introduced a bill known as the DREAM Act. 
My cosponsor at that time was Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. This 
bipartisan bill recognized the fact that many of the undocumented in 
America were brought here as children. They didn't make the family 
decision to get in the car, to head for America--adults did. Some of 
them were only infants. But they came to this country, and they have 
lived in this country since. They go to school in America. They stand 
and pledge allegiance in the classroom to the only flag they have ever 
known. They speak English, and they believe their future is in this 
country.
  These were the DREAMers, and our bill said: Give them a chance. If 
they finish school and they have no serious criminal record, give them 
a chance to earn their way to legalization and citizenship.
  Well, for 15 years this bill has been pending. Sometimes, it passes 
the Senate. Sometimes, it passed the House. It never quite passed both 
Chambers in the same year, and so it is still an aspiration and not 
legislation.
  It was 6 years ago when I wrote a letter to the President, President 
Obama, joined by Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican from Indiana. On a 
bipartisan basis, we asked the President of the United States to 
protect these young DREAMers who grew up in America from deportation.
  These kids deserve a chance. We have invested in them. We have given 
them a good education in American schools, and it makes no sense to 
squander their talents by deporting them to countries they barely know.
  The President, President Obama, responded. He established the 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA. DACA 
provides temporary, renewable, legal status to immigrant students who 
arrive in the United States as children. Approximately 740,000 of these 
young people have come forward and signed up for DACA. DACA has allowed 
them a chance, without the fear of deportation, to contribute more 
fully to our country as soldiers, nurses, teachers, engineers, and 
police officers. DACA is based on the DREAM Act. It gives these 
undocumented students who grew up in this country a chance to earn 
their way toward legal status.
  It is clearly legal. Like every President before him, President Obama 
has had the authority to set immigration policy, and the Supreme Court 
has repeatedly held that the Federal Government has broad authority in 
this area.
  DACA is not just legal. It makes sense. The Department of Homeland 
Security only has enough funding to deport a small fraction of 
undocumented immigrants. So the President--our current President--and 
the President-elect say: Let's focus on those who might cause harm to 
America. I agree with them. That is just common sense.
  But at the same time, President Obama has said: Why would we want to 
waste resources deporting young immigrant students who grew up in this 
country and are making a great contribution? During the campaign, 
President-Elect Trump pledged that he would end DACA. I hope that he 
will reconsider that position.
  I have come to the floor over the last several years to tell the 
stories of these DREAMers. I can give speeches all day about who they 
are, but some of them have the courage to step up and really tell 
America who they are.
  Today I wish to speak to you about one of them. His name is Oscar 
Cornejo, Jr. In the year 2000, when Oscar was only 5 years old, his 
family came to the United States from Mexico. Oscar grew up in Park 
City. It is a small, northern suburb of Chicago, in my home State of 
Illinois.
  He was quite a student. In high school he was a member of the 
National Honor Society and an Illinois State scholar. He received 
several Advanced Placement awards and graduated high school magna cum 
laude. This is what Oscar said about his high school years:

       My parents always instilled in me the value of an 
     education, which is one of the main reasons they decided to 
     leave everything in Mexico and come to the United States. I 
     dedicated myself solely to my education to honor the 
     sacrifices my parents made.

  It was because of those outstanding academic achievements in high 
school that Oscar was admitted to Dartmouth College, an Ivy League 
school in Hanover, NH. He is the first member of his family even to 
attend college.
  Oscar has excelled at Dartmouth. During his freshman year, Oscar 
received the William S. Churchill prize for outstanding academic 
achievement and contributions to the college in the areas of 
``fairness, respect for duty, and citizenship.''

[[Page 14276]]

  Oscar serves on the student board that judges violations of the 
Dartmouth honor code. He cofounded and codirected the college's first 
immigrant rights organization, and now he is in his senior year at 
Dartmouth.
  He wants to be a teacher. He has applied to graduate school at the 
Institute for Recruitment of Teachers at Phillips Academy. He wrote a 
letter to me and said:

       When I received my DACA, the threat of deportation had been 
     lifted and I felt I could actually achieve my dreams. DACA 
     has allowed me to work for the first time and the money I 
     earn goes to support my education and my family.

  Oscar and so many other DREAMers have so much to give to America. If 
we eliminate DACA, Oscar will lose his legal status. He will be subject 
to deportation at any moment, and he could be deported back to Mexico, 
a country where he hasn't lived for 15 years.
  Will America be a stronger country if we lose Oscar Cornejo or if he 
stays here and becomes a teacher? I think the answer is very clear.
  I hope that President-Elect Trump will consider that this young man 
is in a different category than someone who came into this country and 
committed a serious crime. This is a young man who did just the 
opposite. He led a good life. He was successful in high school. He has 
gone to college without any Federal assistance whatsoever. He doesn't 
qualify for a penny, yet he has excelled and still, despite all these 
struggles, wants to give back to this Nation, the only country he has 
ever called home. Losing him would be a loss to America.
  I appeal to the President-elect: Think long and hard about the future 
of this country. Realize that he and I--the President-elect and 
myself--as first-generation Americans, have to understand that it is 
immigration that has brought so much by way of diversity and talent to 
the great United States. We can't shut down DACA. That would be 
horrible. It would mean that 744,000 young people such as Oscar, 
protected from deportation, would wake up the next morning wondering if 
that knock on the door was the last they would hear as a resident of 
America. I am going to fight for Oscar and for the 744,000 who qualify 
for DACA and for the DREAMers like them who came here as children and 
simply asked for a chance.
  There is real division in the Senate, the House, and in the country 
when it comes to immigration. As I have told these stories on the 
floor--almost 100 of them now--I have noticed a number of my colleagues 
from the other side of the aisle say: That really is a different 
situation. This is a young child who should be given a chance. Now is 
the time for America--this Nation of immigrants--to heal our wounds 
that divided us during this election.
  I hope and pray that the President-elect, by word and action, in the 
coming weeks and months will truly bring us together.

                          ____________________