[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13443]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    KEEP THE DOOR OPEN FOR DREAMERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, we all suffer when this country breaks its 
promises. But for our children, that cost compounds. They pay the 
interest on our inaction and inadequacy. They pick up the pieces of the 
precious things that we broke, the sacred resources we took for 
granted, the battles that we were too afraid to fight.
  Time and again, by choice and by chance, they have not disappointed. 
Their broad shoulders carry twice as much twice as far. Their spines 
prove twice as sturdy as the adults meant to protect them.
  American history is littered with the names of young men and women, 
and even boys and girls, forced to be heroes before their time: the 
patriots of D-day, memorialized in a statue called the Spirit of Youth 
in Normandy; 14-year-old Emmett Till, lynched by a lie; Addie Mae 
Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, all 14, and Carol Denise 
McNair, 11, four choir girls lost at the 16th Street Baptist Church 
bombing in Alabama.
  The Children's Crusade. Little boys and girls, kids, who dared defy 
Bull Connor's firehoses and attack dogs to be arrested and rearrested 
again and again as a Nation recoiled in horror.
  Nine African-American high school students from Little Rock marched 
into an all-White high school to prove that separate is not equal.
  Four college students from Kent State who gave their lives to a war-
weary nation's plea for peace.
  Thirteen-year-old Ryan White from Indiana who showed our Nation that 
an HIV diagnosis does not claim your dignity.
  The record number of men and women under the age of 21 who showed up 
at military recruiting stations in 2001, signing up to serve a nation 
reeling from terror on its soil.
  Nineteen-year-old Zach Walls who told us that love is love as he 
bravely defended his two moms before the Iowa State Legislature.
  Seventeen-year-old Lila Perry from Missouri who withstood the sting 
of stigma by being true to herself and her gender identity.
  Thirty-one-year-old Alonso Guillen, a Texan who traveled 120 miles 
from safety into the heart of Hurricane Harvey's fury on a volunteer 
rescue mission, who gave his life so that others, strangers, might 
survive. His courage and sacrifice exemplify the best traits of our 
Nation. They place him squarely on the long list of young American 
heroes who have carried us toward a more perfect union.
  But this week, President Trump slammed the door on 800,000 people 
like Alonso. DREAMers. Children raised in our neighborhoods, who run on 
our playgrounds, who pitch in our Little Leagues, who proudly march in 
4th of July parades, who make lemonade stands, build snowmen, go to 
prom, and get summer jobs, who hit the books, who earn a living, who 
raise families of their own, who serve in our military, who give to 
this country just as much, just as faithfully as you or I.
  Now, our President told them that they are not wanted, that he would 
rather see them in handcuffs, their families ripped apart, their 
futures in limbo, sent to be strangers in a strange land.
  Mr. Speaker, sometimes this body has to make hard choices. Sometimes 
our solutions are complex. This is not one of those times. This one is 
easy. Our work comes down to a very simple question: What are we 
willing to ask our children to bear?
  We have the power in this body to say: Not this, not again, that we 
will not ask the youngest among us to force our country's conscience to 
awake because of the burden that we, the adults in the room, place on 
their shoulders. We can do better. We can be braver. We can change the 
course of that history. We will not stand here and leave it for future 
generations to wonder why we allowed such harm to pass.

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