Broader Options for Americans Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, let me begin by congratulating Chloe Kim, a first-generation American who won an Olympic Gold Medal for the United States in the women's halfpipe snowboarding event this week.
Her father, Jong Jin Kim emigrated from South Korea to the United States in 1982, became a dishwasher at a fast-food restaurant, studied engineering at El Camino College after working those low-skilled jobs, and then became an engineer. He left his engineering job to support his daughter's snowboarding ambitions so he could drive her 5\1/2\ hours to the mountain for training.
Congratulations to Chloe and to her entire family. You make the United States proud.
Madam President, the whole debate we are now undertaking over immigration and the Dreamers has become somewhat personal for me because it has reminded me, in a very strong way, that I and my brother are first-generation Americans. We are the sons of an immigrant who came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket, a young man who was a high school dropout, who did not know one word of English, and who had no particular trade.
A few years ago, my brother and I and our families went to the small town where he came from, and it just stunned me, the kind of courage he showed and millions of other people show leaving their homeland to come to a very different world, in many cases, without money, without knowledge of the language.
My father immigrated to this country because the town where he lived in Poland was incredibly poor. There was no economic opportunity for him. People there struggled to put food on the table for their families. Hunger was a real issue in that area. My father came to this country to avoid the violence and bloodshed of World War I, which came to his part of the world in a ferocious manner, and he came to this country to escape the religious bigotry that existed then because he was Jewish. My father lived in this country until his death in 1962. He never made a lot of money. He was a paint salesman.
My father was not a political person, but it turned out that without talking much about it, he was the proudest American you ever saw, and he was so proud of this country because he was deeply grateful that the United States had welcomed him in and allowed him opportunities that would have been absolutely unthinkable from where he came.
The truth is, immigration is not just my story. It is not just the story of one young man coming from Poland who managed to see two of his kids go to college and one of his sons become a U.S. Senator. It is not just my family's story. It is the story of my wife's family who came from Ireland, and it is the story of tens of millions of American families who came from every single part of this world.
In September of 2017, President Trump precipitated the current crisis we are dealing with by revoking President Obama's DACA Executive order. If President Trump believed that Executive order was unconstitutional and it needed legislation, he could have come to Congress for a legislative solution without holding 800,000 young people hostage by revoking their DACA status. President Trump chose not to do that. He chose to provoke the crisis we are experiencing today. That is a crisis we have to deal with in the Senate, and we have to deal with it now.
Let us be very clear about the nature of this crisis because some people say: Well, it is really not imminent. It is not something we have to worry about now. Those people are wrong. As a result of Trump's decision, 122 people every day are now losing their legal status, and within a couple of years, hundreds of thousands of these young people will have lost their legal protection and be subject to deportation. The situation we are in right now, as a result of Trump's action, means, if we do not immediately protect the legal status of some 800,000 Dreamers--young people who were brought to this country at the age of 1 or 3 or 6--young people who have known no other home but the United States of America--let us be clear that if we do not act and act soon, these hundreds of thousands of young people could be subject to deportation.
That means they could be arrested outside their home, where they have lived for virtually their entire life, and suddenly be placed in a jail. They could be pulled out of a classroom where they are teaching, and there are some 20,000 DACA recipients who are now teaching in schools all over this country. If we do not act and act now, there could be agents going into those schools, pulling those teachers right out and arresting them and subjecting them to deportation. Insane as it may sound, I suppose the 900 DACA recipients who now serve in the U.S. military today could find themselves in the position of being arrested and deported from the country they are putting their lives on the line to defend. Some people say: Well, that is far-fetched. Well, I am not so sure. It could happen. How insane is that? That is where we are today, and that is what could happen if we do not do the right thing and this week pass legislation in the Senate to protect the Dreamers.
We have a moral responsibility to stand up for the Dreamers and their families and to prevent what will be an indelible moral stain on our country if we fail to act. I do not want to see what the history books will be saying about this Congress if we allow 800,000 young people to be subjected to deportation, to live in incredible fear and anxiety.
Here is the very good news for the Dreamers. It is actually news that a couple of years ago, I would not have believed to be possible. The overwhelming majority of American people--Democrats, Republicans, Independents--absolutely agree we must provide legal protection for the Dreamers and that we should provide them with a path toward citizenship. That is not Bernie Sanders talking, that is what the American people are saying in poll after poll.
Just recently, a January 20 CBS News poll found that nearly 9 out of 10 Americans, 87 percent, favor allowing young immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children to remain in the United States--87 percent in Iowa, in Vermont, and in every State in this country. There is strong support for legal status for the Dreamers and a path toward citizenship.
On January 11, a Quinnipiac poll found that 86 percent of American voters, including 76 percent of Republicans, say they want the Dreamers to remain in this country.
On February 5, in a Monmouth poll, when asked about Dreamers' status, nearly three out of four Americans support allowing these young people to automatically become U.S. citizens as long as they don't have a criminal record. In other words, the votes that are going to be cast hopefully today, maybe tomorrow, are not profiles in courage. They are not Members of the Senate coming up and saying: Against all the odds, I believe I am going to vote for what is right. This is what the overwhelming majority of the American people want.
Maybe, just maybe, it might be appropriate to do what the American people want rather than what a handful of xenophobic extremists want. Maybe we should listen to the American people--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--who understand it would be a morally atrocious thing to allow these young people to be deported. When I think, from a political perspective, about 80, 85, 90 percent of the American people supporting anything in a nation which is as divided as we are today, this is really extraordinary. You can't get 80 percent of the American people to agree on what their favorite ice cream is, but we have 80 percent of the American people who are saying, do not turn your back on these young people who have lived in this country for virtually their entire lives.
We have to act and act soon in the Senate, and there is good legislation that would allow us to do that. In the House, the good news is, there is now bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Congressman Hurd and Congressman Aguilar, which will provide protection for Dreamers and a path toward citizenship. My understanding is, bipartisan legislation now has majority support.
I urge, in the strongest terms possible, that Speaker Ryan allow democracy to prevail in the House, allow the vote to take place. If you have a majority of Members of the House, in a bipartisan way, who support legislation, allow that legislation to come to the floor. Let the Members vote their will, and if that occurs, I think the Dreamers legislation will prevail.
Madam President, we all understand that there is a need for serious debate and legislation regarding comprehensive immigration reform. This is a difficult issue, an issue where there are differences of opinion. There are a whole lot of aspects to it. How do we provide a path toward citizenship for the 11 million people in this country who are currently undocumented but who are working hard, who are raising their kids, who are obeying the law? What should the overall immigration policy of our country be? How many people should be allowed to enter this country every year? Where should they come from?
All of this is very, very important and needs to be seriously debated, but that debate and that legislation is not going to be taking place in a 2-day period. It is going to need some serious time, some hearings, some committee work before the Congress is prepared to vote on comprehensive immigration reform, and it will not and cannot happen today, tomorrow, or this week.
Our focus now, as a result of Trump's decision in September, must be on protecting the Dreamers and their families and on the issue of border security.
There will be important legislation coming to the floor of the Senate today or maybe tomorrow, and I would hope that we could do the right thing, do the moral thing, and do something that history will look back on as very positive legislation. Let's go forward. Let's pass the Dreamers bill. Let's deal with border security, and then, in the near future, let us deal with comprehensive immigration reform.
(The Acting President pro tempore assumed the Chair.)
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