Dreamers Must Be Supported

Floor Speech

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Mr. SUOZZI. Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago, my father was born in a small medieval village in the mountaintops of southern Italy.

He came to America as a young boy, and in his St. Dominic's High School senior yearbook, he wrote that his goal in life was ``to become a real American.''

Twenty-seven years ago, I served as the young mayor of my hometown of Glen Cove. I addressed the issue of a growing population of new immigrants from Central and South America who gathered on street corners looking for daywork by creating the first day-worker site anywhere on the East Coast of the United States of America.

Today, those same men who gathered on street corners have their own businesses, own their own homes, and their children went to school with my children.

One Dreamer from El Salvador, who graduated high school with my daughter, went on to graduate from college with a degree in biomedical engineering, got a master's in biomedical engineering, and is now pursuing a doctorate in the same subject.

Today, I will support the American Dream and Promise Act, for Mario, for Nelson, and for all the other Dreamers whose goal is, like my father's, to become a real American.

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