Richard J. Durbin

Mr. President, Claims · 29 wordsfor 25 years I have come to the Senate floor with a simple request--for Congress to protect children who know no other home than the United States of America. Anecdote · 24 wordsI first made this request after I heard from a constituent, a young high school graduate in Chicago and a brilliant, brilliant piano prodigy.Anecdote Claims · 103 wordsShe was brought to the United States when she was 2 years old. She didn’t know how to fill out her college applications because of her undocumented status. I couldn’t believe, when we looked up the law, that our Nation had no path to citizenship for a young person like her so I introduced a bill to change it. Shortly afterward, I received a call from my colleague Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. He said that he was working on similar legislation. I asked him if we could join forces, and we did. Together, Senator Hatch and I introduced the DREAM Act.¹ Positioning · 43 wordsNow, isn’t that how Congress is supposed to work? Two senators of opposing parties, who didn’t agree on much, came together to work on legislation to provide a pathway to legal status for these young people brought to the United States as children.Positioning Claims · 122 wordsThese young people came to be known as Dreamers. Since I first introduced the DREAM Act, I have come to the Senate floor over 150 times to share the stories of these Dreamers, who, today, are doctors, nurses, business owners, educators, parents, and so many other professions. I have pushed for this legislation to make them legal in the eyes of the law, to be included in bipartisan efforts like the 2013 Gang of 8 immigration bill which passed the Senate with 68 votes.² Over the years, the DREAM Act has passed the Senate and it has passed the House, ³but never at the same time so that we couldn’t send it to the President’s desk to have it signed into law. Positioning · 39 wordsAs I near the end of my time in the Senate, Congress continues to fail these young people who are American in every sense of the word, not just to me but to the vast majority of the country.Positioning Claims · 304 wordsThe American people have heard about the DREAM Act for many years. Eighty-one percent of the American people support citizenship for Dreamers--81 percent--including 56 percent of Republicans.⁴ Despite its overwhelming popularity, the DREAM Act is still stuck in Congress. And so, instead of celebrating legislation, establishing a legal pathway for these Dreamers, I come to the floor today to highlight my 153rd Dreamer story. This is Karen Montes Gaga, who arrived in Seattle from Mexico when she was 3 years old.⁵ She loves school, dreamed of becoming a teacher one day. In high school, she was an honor student and a tutor to her peers, but she knew her options beyond high school were limited. Without legal status, she could never get the education she needed to become a teacher. Then DACA was announced by President Obama.⁶ Karen jumped at the chance to enroll in the program and go back to school. So that you understand what DACA is, it says to young undocumented people like Karen that they have to--every 2 years--apply for a work permit and go through a criminal background check and pay what is now a $600 fee every 2 years.⁷ So there is no question about people harboring criminals under the DREAM Act or DACA today. There is a criminal background check required every 2 years. She immediately enrolled in college classes after qualifying for DACA and obtained her bachelor’s degree in education.⁸ But she didn’t stop there. Karen went on to receive her master’s in education curriculum and instruction.⁹ Karen has now been a proud elementary school teacher for almost a decade.¹⁰ She serves on her school’s leadership team. She has been nominated twice for the Teacher of the Year Award.¹¹ As a DACA recipient, Karen, of course, is responsible for renewing that work permit every 2 years. Procedure · 5 wordsBut there is a problem.Procedure Claims · 137 wordsThis year, she filed in a timely manner and expected her most recent renewal to be like every other one for the last 14 years she has been qualified for DACA, ¹²but this renewal process was different. The Trump administration failed to process her DACA renewal in time, even though she had filed it months in advance.¹³ As a result, Karen’s work permit expired, and she was forced to walk out and leave behind her classroom, abandoning her students in the middle of an academic year for months at a time.¹⁴ In a world of rising costs and inflation, losing a single paycheck could be the difference in keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. But you know what Karen is most worried about? Her 27 students that she had to leave behind.¹⁵ Procedure · 4 wordsLet me quote her: ProcedurePositioning · 81 wordsThat is whom this administration and Republicans are failing: a teacher--a teacher--who is committed to instilling strong values and work ethic into her students and whose heart was broken when she could not. To my Republican colleagues, I ask you, if you went out looking for the worst of the worst, would you choose Karen? If you wanted to remove from the United States rapists, murders, terrorists, child predators, would you identify Karen as one of those people? Of course not.Positioning Procedure · 7 wordsKaren put it best when she said: ProcedureClaims · 15 wordsThere is still time to help Dreamers in the final months of the 119th Congress. The ask · 42 wordsTo all my Republican colleagues, please join me and Senator Murkowski in standing up for these young people who epitomize the meaning of the American dream. Stand up for Karen, stand up for her students, and stand up for what is right. Promise · 17 wordsI may be leaving this Senate in a few months, but I am not leaving this fight.Vague promise Procedure · 4 wordsI yield the floor.Procedure