The Green New Deal

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak about the Dream Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would give immigrant students who grew up in the United States a chance to earn their citizenship. This is not a new topic. It was 19 years ago that I introduced the Dream Act. It hasn't become law yet, but it has inspired a movement of thousands of young people across this country.

Back in the day when I introduced this bill and talked about the Dreamers, people thought you were talking about a British rock group. In this case, the Dreamers happened to be a group of people living in America who were desperately trying to become part of America's future. They came to the United States as children, infants, toddlers, and kids. They are American in every way except for a piece of paper on their immigration status. They have gone to our schools. They sit next to us in church. They are the kids whom you see on the playground with your own kids, but they are undocumented. Because they are undocumented, they are subject to deportation at any moment in their lives.

They end up going to school, but it is tougher for them. They don't qualify for Pell grants or Federal loans. They have to find a way to save the money or find a way to secure a scholarship that just might be available to them, but it is rare. Most of the time it means a longer period of time in college before they can finish, as they save up the money. Ultimately, they are trained to become our teachers, our nurses, our doctors, our engineers, and even our soldiers.

Yesterday I reintroduced the Dream Act. My cosponsor is Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I want to thank Lindsey Graham for joining me in this bipartisan effort. Bipartisanship is rare in this Chamber, and on an issue of controversy, it is even rarer.

Senator Graham and I have a long history of working together because we believe that Congress has an obligation to do the job we were elected to do and pass legislation that solves problems. Senator Graham and I were partners in the Gang of 8--four Democratic Senators and four Republican Senators. That was the gang with the great John McCain, Chuck Schumer, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, Bob Menendez, and Michael Bennet.

We wrote a comprehensive immigration reform bill a few years back in 2013. We brought it to the floor of the Senate. We covered virtually every aspect of immigration law. Believe me, immigration law is a mess, and it needed that kind of comprehensive approach. We brought it up to a vote on the floor, and the vote was 68 to 32. It was a bipartisan vote. After months of working on this bill, we couldn't have been happier. We finally had a bipartisan bill to address the immigration challenge in America.

The bill left here and went to the House of Representatives under a Republican leadership, and it died. They wouldn't even consider it, wouldn't debate it, and, certainly, wouldn't vote on it. Look at the mess we have today in the United States because of our immigration laws, and consider the possibility that 6 years ago we had finally found a path that could lead us to a bipartisan solution. That path is still there.

Part of that immigration law was the Dream Act, which we are reintroducing. In 2010 I joined with Republican Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana. We called on President Obama to use his authority as President to protect these Dreamers from deportation. In other words, if we couldn't pass the law, could the President do something to help protect them?

President Barack Obama responded. He created a program called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA. Here is what DACA said: We will give you, 2 years at a time, temporary legal status to stay in the United States and not be deported and be able to work in this country. If you want the temporary status that is renewable every 2 years, you have to report to the government, go through a comprehensive background investigation, pay a fee, and, then, we will give you a chance to stay here, go to school and work, and not be afraid of that knock on the door.

More than 800,000 Dreamers stepped forward. They came forward in an extraordinary way. I can remember the first day when then-Congressman Luis Gutierrez and I decided at Navy Pier in Chicago, which is a huge gathering place, that we would have a sit-down for these young people so they could fill out the forms and apply for DACA status. Initially, we thought we were going to have 1,000. We didn't know what we would do with it. Then, there were 2,000, and then 3,000, and it turned out that families literally stood in line all night long for the chance to come across that threshold to sit down with a volunteer and fill out their form for DACA status. Mothers and fathers were in tears with their kids thinking: At least my son or my daughter will have a chance not to be deported and to be part of America. More than 800,000 of these Dreamers came forward, and they received DACA protection because of President Obama's Executive order. Forty-three thousand were in my State of Illinois.

DACA has unleashed the full potential of these Dreamers, who are contributing to our country in so many ways--teachers, soldiers, engineers, and small business owners.

Then came the day with a new President--President Donald Trump. On September 5, 2017, President Trump announced that he would repeal DACA and the protections that it gave to these people. Hundreds of thousands of Dreamers faced losing their work permits and, even worse, being deported from the only country they had ever known and being sent back to places they couldn't even remember.

When President Trump announced the repeal of DACA, he called on Congress to legalize DACA. Since then, President Trump has rejected every single bipartisan deal we offered him on the subject. I am not giving up on the Dream Act, and I am not giving up on the Dreamers. You would think that after all these years and all these young people, people would be coming to the floor who are against the Dream Act and against DACA, telling horrible stories about the young people who we are talking about today. Strangely, that has never happened. I am sure there is going to be somebody to disappoint me. That is human nature. Overwhelmingly, these young people are just nothing short of amazing.

I have come to the floor of the Senate more than 100 times to tell their stories because I think that is the best way for you to understand why this issue is so important.

This is an amazing young woman. Her name is Karla Robles. Karla Robles is the 116th Dreamer whose story I have told on the floor of the Senate. She was brought to the United States from Mexico when she was 8 years old. She grew up in Chicago, where her mom and dad worked long hours in a pizza restaurant. Karla's parents told her and her brothers and sisters: No matter what happens, make sure to stay out of trouble and study really hard. It will all pay off one day.

That is exactly what Karla did. When Karla started school in the third grade, she didn't speak English, but she worked hard and quickly became an excellent student. Karla wrote me a letter and she said: ``Education has been an important part of my life and the teachers who took the time to guide my family and me are a big reason I want to go into this field.''

In the seventh grade, Karla received the American Legion Award--this undocumented young girl--which was given to one boy and one girl in the class who ``are deemed most worthy of the high qualities of citizenship and of true Americanism.''

In high school, Karla Robles was a member of the National Honor Society and the President's Club, and she was active in student government.

She participated in a program called TRUST, where she agreed to volunteer her personal time to mentor younger students. She was captain and MVP of the varsity tennis team. She received her associate's degree from Harper College. She is now a senior at Loyola University in Chicago.

Here is a special word about Loyola University in Chicago. This is an amazing campus that is doing its best to give people just like Karla a chance in life. They have created something called Arrupe College, which is a low cost approach to higher education for some of the poorest families in Chicago, and they don't exclude kids who are protected by DACA or are Dreamers. The Loyola medical school is one of the few in the United States with open competition where DACA students can apply. There are 32 medical students at Loyola in Chicago who are undocumented. They are DACA Dreamers. They desperately want to be part of America. Part of the agreement is if they go to medical school at Loyola and borrow money to do it, they have to pay back a year of service in an underserved area in the State of Illinois for the money that they are receiving to go to school.

Back to Karla.

During college, she was on the National Honor Roll and the Dean's List. She also volunteers with an outreach program for at-risk kids and with AmeriCorps VISTA, and she founded a tutoring program for elementary school students.

I know Karla a little better than I know some of the Dreamers because she interned here in my Washington, DC, office last year. What does she want to do at the end of this journey if she can stay in America? She wants to be a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. She wants to pursue her master's degree and become a high school guidance counselor.

There are some people who look at this picture and say: This is not an American citizen. Tell her to leave. I look at this picture and think that we are lucky to have her, that this Nation of immigrants is lucky to have this young woman who simply wants to give back to America. That is all she is asking for--nothing special--just to let her give back to this country.

So we have reintroduced the Dream Act. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will come forward and join me and Senator Lindsey Graham, my Republican cosponsor.

We think there are about 1.8 million young people who are eligible for the Dream Act in the United States. They have never known another country. In the mornings, when they walk into the classrooms in their schools, they stand up and put their hands on their chests and pledge allegiance to the only flag they have ever known. They were just kids when they were brought here. Shouldn't we do the right thing in America--this Nation of immigrants, this country of opportunity, this bright city on the hill, this shining city on the hill?

Yes, we should.

For the Dreamers and for their moms and dads, we have to renew our commitment that the next generation of Americans who will come from all over the world will continue to make this one of the finest countries on Earth.

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