Broader Options for Americans Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, watching the pictures today as I came to the floor was deeply moving. Even though there is much that we don't know and a lot of information that we lack about what is happening at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, the images of emergency vehicles and emergency responders and of young people and children evacuating a school after another tragic incident of gun violence brings back memories that are searing and harrowing. Once again, we feel that churning in our stomach, that sense of gut-punch, and a wrenching of hearts that reminds us of how we felt the day of violence in Newtown. Yet another school is victimized by gun violence.

We are waiting to learn more of the details, but certainly our hearts and prayers go to the victims and their loved ones. Our gratitude goes to the courageous first responders who are on the scene now apprehending the shooter and administering to the victims and survivors. My thoughts and prayers are with those students, emergency responders, parents, loved ones, and the community of Parkland.

Again, gun violence respects no boundaries. It spares no communities. It victimizes all of us, wherever it happens and whenever, including the gun violence that kills people every day individually, often unpublicized and invisible.

My heart breaks to hear that one more school is facing this unthinkable horror, that again this harrowing scene plays before the people of America, literally unfolding in real-time. I know that I and all of the Members of this Chamber share the grief and sympathy and heartbreak that community is experiencing today.

Mr. President, I want to talk about the Connecticut Dreamers and share their stories and call for this Chamber to take narrow and focused action to prevent their draconian mass deportation and protect them from that kind of very unfortunate outcome.

The Dreamers who would be covered under legislation, which I hope will pass in the next 24 hours, came here as children. They grew up as Americans. This country is the only one they know. English is the only language many of them speak. They go to our schools. They serve in our military. They support our economy. They believe in the American dream. All of us believe in the American dream, but so do they. They work hard and give back.

Deporting the Dreamers would be cruel, irrational, and inhumane-- unworthy of a great country. It would break our promise to the Dreamers who came forward when they were told they would be given protected status and would be a violation not only of the American dream but of the promise made by a great nation.

Gabriela Valdiglesias came to the United States in 2001 from Lima, Peru. She has lived in Connecticut for 17 years. She works for Connecticut Students for a Dream, advocating for her fellow Dreamers. For those workers, she has been working on securing their right to safety, to higher education, to healthcare, and to live in a country without fear and discrimination.

She shared with me some of the difficulties her family had while she was growing up. She and her five siblings are supported by their parents, who work in minimum-wage jobs. She hopes that if the Dream Act passes, she will be able to take on some of the economic burden her parents now carry. She hopes she will be able to make enough money to support herself and her family.

She is currently in her first year of college, at a community college, where she has faced many financial challenges. Not being able to get a job at 18 years old is frustrating and sometimes devastating. If the Dream Act is passed, she could finish her 2 years at community college and transfer to a 4-year institution, and she could pursue her dream of working as a lawyer or in the field of law.

There are countless other stories of Connecticut Dreamers, some wanting to keep their identities confidential. There is a young man in Bridgeport who was brought to Connecticut at the age of 5. He was educated in the Bridgeport public schools. He majored in chemistry and now attends Fairfield University. He has excelled there. He finished his first degree and was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley's physical chemistry program. He had to live under the threat of deportation because he had no way to apply for permanent lawful status. While he was continuing his studies here, he lived with the threat of deportation.

There is a New Britain woman who was born in Mexico and brought to America when she was 6 years old. The journey was terrifying. She could barely understand what was happening. She had no idea at 6 years old that she was entering America in a way that would affect her for the rest of her life. It was not her choice to come here or to come here in that way, but it has affected her. In fact, despite her attending school and then going to college out of State at Bay Path University and earning a great many leadership positions there, she remains in the limbo of uncertainty and anguish and anxiety created by the threat of deportation. She dreams about helping people, making sure that families with low incomes can have access to occupational therapy. She is pursuing a master's degree in occupational therapy.

Finally, there is a woman I know who came here from 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. When they settled in Norwalk, CT, her mother also told her that she could be successful if she were bilingual. She began to go to school right away. Life was difficult at the beginning, and 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, and even if they accepted her, she could not be eligible for financial assistance because she was undocumented.

But she persevered, and she attended community college. She went on to Western Connecticut State University, and she overcame obstacles that for many Americans born here would be insuperable. Now facing deportation, she fears all of those dreams and all of that work will be for naught.

These Dreamers, in fact, have trusted America. They believed in America's promise to them. Coming forward, providing facts about their residence, their family, their job, and Social Security number, they believed in America. It wasn't a dream. America is to be trusted. America is the land of opportunity. America is the greatest Nation in the history of the world. They have a dream that is American, which is that they will have the opportunity to pursue their full potential as human beings to give back, to educate themselves, and to better their lives. That is the American dream.

In Dr. Martin Luther King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech, he said:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note . . . a promise that all men--

And he might have added women-- would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The time has long since come for us to help the Dreamers. The time is today for us to protect them against mass draconian deportation, a violation of a promise that would be unworthy of America.

The promissory note of this American dream can be made a reality by this Chamber today and tomorrow.

I understand that some of my colleagues may want to change the immigration system. It is truly a broken system in need of comprehensive reform. That task is for another day. Today, we must make sure that we provide these Dreamers with legal status and a path to citizenship. That is our moral obligation. That is our job. Let's get it done.

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