DACA
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, our Nation's immigration system is broken. There would be scant, if any, disagreement with that proposition in this Chamber. There would be no disagreement among anyone who is familiar with this broken immigration system. Far too often, that system is not only broken but violates the essential fundamental values and core convictions of the American people, values that are embodied in our Constitution, in the daily ethics we preach and live about fairness and welcoming people who are different from ourselves, people who have come here to escape persecution in their native lands, much as my father did in 1935 at the age of 17.
He came alone, he spoke virtually no English, had not much more than the shirt on his back, and knew virtually no one. That is the way people still come to this great country, the greatest country in the history of the world.
The immigration system that enabled him to come here is now fraught with strictures and failings and irrational barriers that work against not only the interests of people seeking freedom and opportunity but our national interests. That interest is best served when we make possible the talent, gifts, and energy of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants, and we should be working to reform the immigration system for our national interest.
No one exemplifies more poignantly and eloquently the flaws in our present system than young people known as the DREAMers. For a while, not that long ago, I resolved that I would come to the floor every week with a photograph of a different DREAMer from Connecticut who would demonstrate with a face, if not a voice, why some relief for our DREAMers is essential to our national interests.
DREAMers are members of our society, brought to this country as children, some before they even learned to speak, but now, for almost all of them, English is their native language. This Nation is the only home they have ever known. They pledge allegiance to the flag in school and at events with their hand over their hearts, just as we all do and just as we begin every day the proceedings of this Chamber. Many of them know and never take for granted the gifts of living in the greatest, freest, strongest nation ever to exist on the planet. They know it. They never take it for granted because they hear stories from their aunts and uncles, maybe even their parents about what life was like in the place they left when they were brought here as infants and small children.
So they go to our schools. They learn skills. They go to colleges, and many go on to higher education. They have skills and training and gifts and talents that would be extraordinarily useful and important.
There is one problem: They are not citizens. They are not citizens.
They are in constant danger of deportation. They are stuck in a potentially illegal and devastating situation because they have no path to citizenship in a country that should welcome them and make it possible for them to come out of the shadows.
In recognition of those overwhelming merits, President Obama used his well-established Executive authority to institute the DACA Program.
Understand that the DACA Program does not grant citizenship, it just defers and delays deportation proceedings. Countless young men and women came out of the shadows and made known their presence to the U.S. Government to become part of the DACA Program, disclosing their illegal status. They are now fearful. In fact, fearful is a clear understatement. They are terrified. I have met with many of them. I have known many of them over the years. I have come to admire and respect their patriotism, their aspirations, and their dreams.
As DREAMers, their dream is American citizenship, which all too often many of us take for granted. Their dream is American citizenship in the best sense of it--giving back to the country that they regard as their home, giving back by using those talents as nurses and doctors to help the sick, as engineers and scientists to build inventions and advance our knowledge, as entrepreneurs to build businesses and employ people and create jobs and drive the economy forward. In fact, immigration reform and these programs are thought to be job creators and sources of economic profit.
The DACA Program was a temporary effort, a respite for them in their striving to gain some permanency and some reliable status so they could be secure and feel safe in this country. Their terror now is well- founded, in fact, because the threat to them from the incoming administration is that they will be, in fact, deported en masse or perhaps their parents will be with them, and the American dream will become a fantasy--in fact, a nightmare.
We are talking about young men, one of them well known to me in Bridgeport, who was brought to Connecticut from Brazil at the age of 5.
He studied in the Bridgeport public schools from kindergarten to high school, and then he went on to attend Fairfield University. He majored in chemistry, minored in mathematics. He excelled, so that during his senior year at Fairfield, he was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley's Physical Chemistry Program. But he had to live under the threat of deportation because he had no way to apply for lawful permanent status while he was continuing his studies here in America, potentially contributing greatly to the American quality of life.
There is the New Britain woman who was born in Mexico and brought to America when she was 6 years old. The journey for her was terrifying.
She could not understand what was happening. She certainly had no idea that she was entering America in a way that would affect her the rest of her life at 6 years old. The idea that she was here in an illegal status was incomprehensible. Her family settled in Connecticut. She began school immediately in New Britain, and she went through the public schools there and graduated from New Britain High School in 2008. She decided to attend college out of State at Bay Path College, earning a great many leadership positions there. She became the first in her family to graduate from college and then received a master's degree in occupational therapy. She has dreamed about helping people-- maybe at nonprofit--to make sure that families with low incomes have access to occupational therapy.
I think, too, of the young woman I know who was born in Venezuela.
She was brought here when she was 11 years old. She remembers her mother telling her that she was going to America to learn English. Her mother also told her that she could be successful if she was bilingual and if she worked hard and studied. That is exactly what she did with her family when they settled in Norwalk, CT.
She began to go to school right away. Life at the beginning was difficult. There was a lot to learn. By the time she was a junior in high school, she stopped trying to get perfect grades because she feared colleges would not accept her simply because she was undocumented, and even after she was accepted, she could not afford it, but she persevered. She attended community college, which was a huge financial burden. After Norwalk Community College, she went on to Western Connecticut State University. She persevered and she climbed those obstacles that many young American young people don't face, but she pursued a double major in accounting and finance. She hopes to become an accountant and pursue a career in business. But she has no pathway to citizenship or even lawful status.
She fears that her dream will be unreachable.
That is why DACA is so important, why it should be extended, why we need to reform a broken immigration system that keeps the DREAMers and all of those 11 million people in the shadows without a path to earned citizenship, why we need to go back to the bipartisan reform proposal that passed overwhelmingly in this body with strong support on both sides of the aisle and then was denied a vote in the House of Representatives. That bipartisan effort needs to be resolved.
In the meantime, the DREAMers should be given lawful status so they can pursue their studies and their careers and give back to the greatest country in the history of the world.
I yield the floor.
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