DACA
Floor Speech
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Mr. President, tonight I rise to address another issue-- the Trump administration's decision to end the program known as DACA.
DACA provided deportation relief to nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children. Those kids grew up in America alongside America's children, playing on our Little League teams, running for student government, marching in the school band.
Just like America's kids, they showed up to class, they did their homework, and they pushed forward with every expectation of building a future for themselves and for their communities. The only difference between them is that the kids covered by DACA came to America as undocumented immigrants.
Many of these kids didn't even know they didn't have legal status. I know this firsthand because I used to be the Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. It was about ninth grade that children would realize--children who had no country other than the United States as their home--that they didn't have legal status because they had come here through no fault of their own without documented status.
A lot of these kids found out the hard way, applying for jobs that asked for papers they didn't have, applying for financial aid they were ineligible to receive, and coping with the possibility of being ripped away from friends and family at any time. DACA ended that. It stopped it. Nationwide, it protected nearly 800,000 young adults from deportation and gave them lawful presence in the only country they knew to build a future. That is precisely what they have done.
Since DACA was enacted, the young people who enrolled in the program have grown into young adults. They have found jobs. They pay taxes. They have started businesses. They have bought homes. They are raising families.
In Colorado, over 17,000 young people came forward to take the government at its word, to share their information, and to apply for deferred action. Each one of them placed their faith in us to protect them and their families until we came to a long-term solution about their status. Today, President Trump has betrayed that trust. Worse, his decision to rescind DACA betrays the very character of our country.
America does not strip parents from their children. We do not strip brothers from sisters. America does not round up neighbors to send them to places they have not known since they were 2 years old or 6 months old, if they knew them at all. We do not use kids and families as some kind of bargaining chip for legislation. That is not who we are. This decision will not only hurt families and communities, but it will hurt our economy, as 90 percent of DACA recipients work, and 7 in 10 have bachelor's degrees or higher. They pay taxes. Over the next 2 years, ending DACA could force hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs. Colorado alone stands to lose over $850 million in economic activity every single year as a result of this rash decision. That is why business leaders all across my State have decried this decision as not only cruel but costly.
President Trump campaigned to strengthen families and our economy. With this decision, he is taking aim at both. Now parents all across America are planning where to send their kids if they are deported. Young professionals worry about what will happen to their mortgages, their car payments, and their student loans if they are fired and forced to leave. Business owners wonder how they will make up for the hard workers whom they have come to rely on over the years. Once again, President Trump has unleashed needless anxiety and uncertainty across America.
This weekend, I was thinking we would never have been in this position if Congress had acted to fix our broken immigration system to ensure legal status for everybody protected by deferred action. Like the Presiding Officer, I was part of the Gang of 8, which wrote the immigration bill in the Senate. It was four Democrats and four Republicans who worked together over a period of 8 months in a process that I think the American people would be justifiably proud of. For once in Washington, people sat down in a bipartisan way to actually solve the problems that face this country. We were not making trades.
We were not holding each other hostage in that room. We knew that securing the border was an important good, and we knew a pathway to citizenship was an important good.
We delivered both to the floor of this Senate. In fact, the bill had very meaningful border security. It is the only bill that has passed either the House or the Senate that has had any border security and internal security as well and, as I mentioned, a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented people who are here, including everybody who is protected by DACA. It was a good bill--I think it was a great bill--and it got 68 votes in the Senate. If the House had done what the American people had wanted us to do, it would have passed our bill, and we would not have had to go through the agony of what the Trump administration is doing to immigrants in this country right now.
I think Congress needs to act swiftly to clean up the damage the administration has unleashed, and that starts with passing the Dream Act. Now is the time for our Republican colleagues to come forward on this important piece of legislation that historically has been supported by Republicans.
Tonight, I thank my colleague from Colorado, Senator Cory Gardner, for doing just that and joining me as a cosponsor of the Dream Act. We have an opportunity to come together as Republicans and Democrats in order to give young people the certainty they deserve and the legal path to stay in the only country they know. This is not about left versus right, although I say that about everything in this place, but in this case it really is true. This is about doing right for the young people who are, in every sense, our fellow Americans.
It is about doing the right thing for people in Colorado, like Marissa Molina. Marissa was 9 years old when her parents took her from Mexico to Colorado. She grew up in Glenwood Springs on the West Slope.
She worked hard and planned on going to college until she realized, like so many young people whom I have met, that she was ineligible for in-state tuition because of her legal status, but she was determined to make it work anyway. She cleaned houses with her mom and tutored other students in Spanish. All of that helped, but it was not enough. By her junior year, Marissa's family had little money left, and she nearly had to drop out.
Then DACA went into effect, and Marissa was able to secure Federal student loans and graduate summa cum laude from Fort Lewis College in Durango. Determined to give back, Marissa spent 2 years teaching in my old school district, in the Denver Public Schools. She did not have any background in education, but she wanted to pay it forward by helping other kids achieve.
Like Marissa, Marco Dorado came to Denver when he was just 3 years old. His parents have worked in our community for over two decades in order to provide for him and his three siblings. Marco was the first person in his family to graduate from high school, but after graduating, he could not get a job because he did not have a Social Security card. He could not get a driver's license, and he could not get a student loan--a bright future frozen in place. Marco felt trapped in a system with no way forward.
Then the last President announced DACA in 2012. Marco got his Social Security card, his driver's license, and financial aid to attend the University of Colorado. As he studied for a degree in finance, he worked between classes and interned at our State capitol. There, he learned something about politics, and he was voted student body president by his peers at CU, at the University of Colorado.
In every practical sense there is, Marco is an American. He has no memory of life before America. He grew up in our schools, played alongside our kids, attended our colleges, and has been working to improve this democracy. His two younger brothers and sisters, as is so often the case, were born here.
A decent and compassionate administration would find a way for Marco to stay in the only community he knows. A smart and forward-looking administration would seize on this young man's talent and commitment to our Nation. A wise administration would recognize in Marco and Marissa the best qualities of America--hard work, family, perseverance, and service. Instead--and I regret this--we have the Trump administration, which threatens to rip them from their families, tear them from the communities they have built in Colorado, and deprive our Nation of their obvious and considerable talent.
The administration's decision today has thrown hundreds of thousands of people like Marco and Marissa into needless chaos and fear. For what--to satisfy the smallest fringe of the far right? A majority of the Republicans in my State not only support the Dream Act but support a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented people who are here.
Unfortunately, today's decision is just the latest example of the violence this President has done to our country's traditions.
Because of his rhetoric against immigrants, against Muslims, his equivocation about White nationalists, there is a deep unease in this country. I have heard it in townhalls across Colorado. In times like these, it falls on all of us--not just on the people in the Senate--to put our hands on someone else's shoulder and say: I am glad you are here. Thank you for the contribution you have made by working in our fields and in our factories. We are grateful for what you have done for our communities. We are glad you are studying at the University of Denver or CSU or CU. Though we need legislation to undo the administration's actions today, this goes well beyond any law on the books. It goes to who we are as a nation.
Earlier this year, at my home, I hosted five college students who had received protection under the DACA Program. I made them breakfast, and we sat around the backyard to talk. I heard the worries they had that no young person in this country should have to bear, but I also heard an incredible sense of aspiration that any American would recognize-- dreams of finishing college, launching a business, leading a nonprofit, starting a family. That is no surprise because these kids are American in every way that counts, and like young people across the country, they envision a bright future for themselves. We have taught them to do that since they were kids. Now we should let them realize it.
I thank my colleague from Washington for her patience.
I yield the floor.
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