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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, in the depths of World War II raging in Europe, a group of people decided to charter a ship and come to the United States. They were Jewish people from European countries. The ship was known as the USS St. Louis. It went to the port in Havana, Cuba, and was turned away. It tried to land in the United States and was turned away again. It eventually returned to Europe, a boatload of Jewish people. Hundreds of them died in the Holocaust.

We reflected on that after World War II and decided it was not a period in American history that we should take pride in but a lesson to us of what happens when people are in desperate situations and ask for help.

I believe it was in 1951 that we entered into the Geneva Convention, an agreement when it came to refugees who sought refuge at the shore. The United States, under Presidents of both political parties, wanted to establish once and for all that what happened to the USS St. Louis did not reflect the values of the United States of America. So in 1951, we established, with many nations around the world, a standard for what to do with refugees, people who sought refuge in your country because of fear of staying in their own country.

The system worked well for us for many decades, but now we are facing a new challenge we have never seen before. The number of refugees from around the world is at a recordbreaking pace--some refugees because of war, some because of fear, religious belief, state of the environment-- and they are moving in massive numbers all over the globe, particularly into Europe and the United States.

So we have seen recordbreaking numbers appearing at our border to the south of our country, and we have heard from the other party quite a bit about this--deservedly so.

I am a person who believes in immigration. My mother was an immigrant to this country, and I am proud to be in the Senate, a first-generation American, representing the great State of Illinois, as the Presiding Officer does. But I understand the overwhelming numbers we are facing at the border and President Biden is facing really argue for us to take a hard look at the way we approach this.

If you have ever been to an immigration court--and I have in the city of Chicago--it is an overwhelming experience. You see people standing three and four deep against the wall, waiting for their numbers to be called. Usually--in fact, almost without fail--their cases are postponed for another 6 months or another year.

It takes years for a person's refugee claim to be litigated. That is just plain wrong. Justice delayed in this situation is clearly justice denied. And the fact that half of them don't win in their litigation is an indication that if they were tried at an earlier date, the resolution of their future would be obvious.

So now we hear from our Republican friends that before we can provide any more military assistance to Ukraine in their war against Vladimir Putin, the war criminal from Moscow, if we are going to provide any assistance to Israel to fight off the Hamas terrorism group, we have to resolve the problems at our southern border before we can go forward.

It troubles me because I have been working on immigration for at least 20 years, maybe more, and I know how difficult the issue is. It is hard to explain in the United States of America, a nation of immigrants, why immigration is such a hot, controversial topic. Virtually everyone in this country is only a generation or two removed from being an immigrant to this country, and yet there has been resistance throughout our history--unless we needed cheap labor to build the transcontinental railroad, when we invited Chinese workers to come in. We treated them, unfortunately, in an inhumane fashion and didn't give them, largely, the eligibility to become citizens. But we needed the labor. We needed the workers. It has happened many times before.

What troubles me about the debate now about the southern border is it is one-half of the immigration equation. Yes, we need order at the border. Yes, we need to have changes in the laws that reflect the reality of the overwhelming numbers from all over the world who are coming to our shores and our border. But there is also an incredible demand for legal immigration into this country even now.

The Presiding Officer, my colleague from the State of Illinois, has legislation which addresses one aspect of that. Her bill--and I hope I describe it accurately--says that if you are an undocumented person in this country and you can pass the physical and the required tests, background test and the like, you can serve in our military, and if you do it honorably, we will make you citizens of the United States.

Do we need that? Do you know what the recruiting numbers are at the Army and the Navy and the Air Force? They can't reach their quotas each month. They can't find enough people to join our military forces. There are those who are undocumented who want the chance to serve and risk their lives for this country. Should we give them the chance? I think we should.

Let me tell you about others that we need. In my State of Illinois, in the inner city in Chicago and the rural areas downstate, we are holding our breath, hoping that we can keep hospitals open. Do you know why? We don't have enough medical personnel. Yet there are people all around this world who have medical credentials as doctors and nurses and skilled technicians who want to come to the United States, but we don't give them the chance.

I think it is a reasonable thing to do. I think it would make us a better nation and a healthier nation to keep those hospitals open, and they are desperate to find new personnel. We need legal immigration for that.

The same holds true when it comes to agricultural workers. In our State of Illinois, we desperately need them for virtually every aspect of farming and agriculture. Are they available and ready to come? Yes. But we need a change in the immigration law to reach that.

The point I am trying to make is there are many issues involving immigration. Enforcement and making certain that the people who come here are not a danger to our country are primary. The second to that is to make sure we have an orderly process, and third, that we recognize that legal immigration is needed now more than ever.

A few years back, I was part of an effort called the Gang of Eight-- John McCain, myself, Chuck Schumer. We came together and wrote a comprehensive immigration bill. It hadn't been done for over 25 years. We brought it to the floor of the Senate, and it passed.

You see, we have 11 million undocumented people in the United States. They are people who are raising families, going to work, attending churches and synagogues and temples that you attend. They are part of America, but legally they are not on the books.

If we had a system I think that is fair, that passed the U.S. Senate, which said once and for all they can step forward out of the shadows, register with the government, pay their fair share of taxes, pay into Social Security, help us deal with the financial challenges of our entitlement system, and work in this country legally, registered, and we know exactly where they live--that, to me, is a sensible approach. It is one that passed on the floor of the Senate. It is one which we should turn to again.

As we are giving work permits to those who are in temporary protected status, we should be giving work permits to those who have been here for years and years, raised a family, and proven that they can be a good neighbor to anyone in this country. Give them a chance to legally work. I think that is important, and we should do that.

I want to tell you a story about one person. She is a resident of the State of Illinois.

Twenty years ago, I introduced the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act said that if you were brought here as an infant, toddler, or small child, you should be given a chance to earn your way to citizenship in America.

When they test this proposition across the country, Democrats and Republicans agree that is only fair. Those little kids didn't have a vote when their family decided to come to the United States. They have grown up here. They have been educated in our schools here. They have advanced degrees. They want to be part of America's future, and they should be given that chance.

Well, unfortunately, the bill did not pass. But President Barack Obama, the former Senator from Illinois, created a program called DACA, which addressed that very serious gap in immigration law for these young people. Eight hundred thousand young people qualified for the DACA Program. Now it is under attack in the courts, and the question is, Will it survive even for those 800,000? I am not sure it will. But we do know that these Dreamers can offer a lot to this country. Let me tell you the story of one of them.

Her name is Mitchell Soto-Rodriguez. She first came to Blue Island, IL, from Mexico City as a 9-year-old with her family. When she was a sophomore in high school, Mitchell was in a car accident with her mom and sister. The police officer who came to the scene made an impression by being respectful, professional, and speaking Spanish to make her mother feel more comfortable. The experience prompted Mitchell to decide that she wanted to serve her community as a police officer.

Mitchell obtained an associate's degree from Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, IL. Last year, she graduated magna cum laude from Governors State University with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.

Understanding how immigrants contribute to our communities, Blue Island decided to permit DACA recipients like Mitchell to work as police officers. Today, Mitchell serves her community as a part-time police officer while she is attending the police academy and working as a security officer at the local high school.

But DACA was always intended to be a temporary solution for Dreamers like Mitchell. Since President Obama established the program, Republicans have waged a relentless campaign to overturn it and deport these Dreamers back to the countries they may not even remember. The permanent solution is enacting a piece of legislation that I did introduce 20 years ago, the DREAM Act. It would provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers all across the country.

Without permanent protections, these young people have been forced to live in limbo and fear that DACA will be overturned by the courts. They have to renew their status every 2 years, which means their lives are in 2-year increments.

In September, a Federal judge in Texas declared the DACA Program illegal, though the decision left in place protections for current recipients like Mitchell while her appeal is pending.

Until the DREAM Act is passed, Mitchell's service to her community and to our Nation is at risk, as is the service that so many Dreamers are providing in their communities as teachers, medical professionals, servicemembers, and so much more.

Immigrants have been a critical part of the American success story, and our Nation needs immigrants like Mitchell and her family more than ever today. If DACA is struck down, experts predict that our economy will lose billions of dollars, $11.7 billion in lost wages. And without continued legal immigration, the U.S. working-age population will shrink by over 6 million by 2040. As more Americans retire, this could contribute to a 23-percent reduction in the monthly Social Security checks that beneficiaries have been promised.

These young people, these DACA recipients and many others, want to be part of our economy, pay their taxes, pay into Social Security, and we desperately need them to do it. With over 9\1/2\ million jobs open right now in America, our farmers, hospitals, and small business owners desperately need immigrants to meet their workforce needs.

To resolve these challenges, we should create additional lawful pathways for immigrants to work in the United States. We should also give our undocumented population--most of whom have been here for decades--legal status so they can fully contribute to our society.

I am ready to negotiate with my Republican colleagues in good faith to solve the problem at the border. And it needs a solution. I readily acknowledge that. But at the same time, I hope they will take a positive approach as well knowing that we desperately need legal immigration. And if people are clear to come to our country for that purpose, we will be better for it in so many different levels.

There are some on the other side--I am going to be very blunt about this--who believe in the theory of not one more immigrant in this country. They don't know the history of the United States. They don't know what these immigrants have meant to us. In my family and the families across the whole country, you can point to immigrants who have made a solid difference in building a family and in building an economy which we all prosper from today.

So let's get it right when it comes to enforcement at the border, but let's not tell half the story. Let's tell the other half of the story that legal immigration is critical to our future, and people like Mitchell Soto-Rodriguez, who is wanting to serve as a police officer in her community in Illinois, is an asset to this country, and we need her in our future.

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