[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13449]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           CONGRESS MUST PASS LEGISLATION TO PROTECT DREAMERS

  (Mr. TONKO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, ending the Deferred Action for Childhood 
Arrivals program is inhumane and unAmerican. Whatever your politics on 
immigration, America's DREAMers did not choose their birthplace or 
their path early in life. They are innocents, and they have grown up as 
Americans. They have attended school here alongside our own children. 
They share our values and our principles. They believe in the American 
Dream.
  Yes, deporting them hurts our economy, and yes, it damages our 
standing as a leading nation, but at its heart, this is a matter of 
conscience.
  What kind of justice will we give to kids brought here when they were 
6 years old, who grew up as Americans and who have no home beyond our 
shores?
  To make them the targets of deportation is a violation of our 
national conscience.
  Congress must act now to pass legislation to protect these DREAMers. 
A just nation must not take lightly the judgment of the innocent. Let 
us not discard our friends and our neighbors for the sake of political 
theater, not when we can instead draw strength of heart and mind and 
treasure from their experience, their differences, and the many values 
we share in common.
  E pluribus unum. Out of many, we are indeed one.

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