[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 126 (Monday, July 19, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4938-S4939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               DREAM ACT

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, on a separate issue, I cannot imagine 
what life would be like if I were a kid growing up in America, always 
wondering if something I said, something I did, some action that was 
taken by some member of my family would result in a knock on the door 
and my family being torn apart, my father or mother being deported to 
another country. But for hundreds of thousands of young people living 
in America, that has been the reality of their childhood.
  Most of them, brought to this country at a very early age--infants 
and toddlers and young people--had nothing to say about the choice of 
America as home, but they always assumed it was their home. They grew 
up in this country, went to the schools, got up every morning in the 
classroom and pledged allegiance to the flag, believing they were truly 
Americans. It wasn't, for many of them, until their teenage years that 
their parents sat down with them very quietly and solemnly told them: 
You have a challenge in your life you didn't even realize. You are 
undocumented. You were brought to this country by us as a little kid, 
and you don't have any papers. If you are challenged, if you are 
arrested, you could be deported. And the same thing might just happen 
to your mother or your father.
  I can't imagine, with all of the stress of childhood and adolescence, 
having that worry as well. Yet, for hundreds of thousands of young 
people, through no fault of their own, that was part of their lives.
  That came to my attention 20 years ago, a case in Chicago, which I 
have spoken about on the floor many times, where a young girl finally 
realized at the end of high school the really stark choices she had in 
her life, and she reached out to my office. We looked into the 
situation. She was brought here to the United States, born in Brazil to 
Korean parents, had no legal status in the United States and grew up 
here. She wanted to know what to do with her life, what was next for 
her.
  The law was very harsh, but it was clear as well. At the age of 18, 
our law said to Tereza Lee, a young Korean girl in Chicago, you have to 
leave the United States for 10 years and petition to return. It didn't 
seem right or fair or just to her, and so I introduced the DREAM Act. 
That is when I came to realize Tereza's story was not unique. There 
were thousands just like her. Over the last 20 years, I have met a lot 
of them, an amazing group of young men and women who have done 
remarkable things with their lives with limited resources and always 
under the shadow of deportation.
  The DREAM Act has been brought to the floor of the Senate five 
different times and failed--not because it didn't win a majority but 
because of the filibuster. So we have tried in those 20 years to get 
something done, and we have had our really troublesome moments. I think 
back to one of the worst.
  Under the previous President, Donald Trump, DACA, a program created 
by President Obama for these Dreamers, was really an issue from the 
start that we begged President Trump to consider. President Obama, a 
friend of mine and former colleague from Illinois, told me that he 
spent an extra

[[Page S4939]]

hour in transition with President Trump in the White House, while Obama 
was still President. It was supposed to last an hour; it lasted 2 
hours. He said to me: I spent that last hour talking about DACA and 
Dreamers, telling him how important it was to get this right, that 
these young people deserved a chance, and he listened very intently. 
President Obama said: ``I hope that he will help you when it comes to 
these Dreamers.''
  The first time I ever met Donald Trump was on his Inauguration Day as 
President, not too far from here at a luncheon, and the first thing I 
said to him was, I hope you will give those Dreamers a chance to become 
part of America.

  He said: Senator Durbin, don't worry. I am going to take care of 
those Dreamers.
  In the first year of his Presidency, he tried to abolish the DACA 
Program and subject these Dreamers to deportation. It was a very dark 
period. For many of them, they were despondent. Several of them said 
they couldn't take it anymore, the pressure they were under to create a 
life in America under the shadow of deportation and now have a 
President who was really determined to make them leave America.
  Well, the courts took a look at what President Trump had to do, all 
the way up to the Supreme Court across the street. It was Chief Justice 
Roberts who wrote the decision, which said the method that Donald 
Trump's administration used to eliminate DACA was stricken as 
``arbitrary and capricious.''
  So there was a new lease on life and a new opportunity for them, 
until Friday--when the Federal judge in Texas made the most recent 
ruling. On Friday night, a Federal judge in Texas issued a ruling 
declaring that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was 
unlawful, and the judge blocked the Biden administration from approving 
new DACA applications, a new setback for the Dreamers.
  This decision was made in response to a lawsuit filed by Republican 
State attorneys general. It was the culmination of a long campaign, 
which included the action of President Trump, by Republicans to deport 
the Dreamers. What is it about these young people that infuriates the 
Republicans so much? Well, I will tell you what I found as I have come 
to know them. They are some of the most amazing stories you could 
imagine. Not just the threat that I mentioned earlier, the shadow of 
deportation over their lives, but what they have done anyway--becoming 
doctors and nurses and teachers and engineers, serving in our Army, 
working for America in essential jobs in the midst of a pandemic. It is 
an amazing group of people. It is just the kind of people we want and 
need for the future of this country.
  But let me state this unequivocally: The cruel and misguided decision 
of this court will not stand. DACA is a lawful exercise of executive 
prosecutorial discretion by the Department of Homeland Security. More 
than 800,000 young people in our country have received DACA protection, 
and they help save lives every day as nurses and doctors and first 
responders. They contribute to our economy and our future as business 
owners, engineers, and teachers. They are a vital part of our 
communities as friends, family members, and loved ones. America is the 
only home these Dreamers have ever known, and Congress has waited long 
enough--in fact, it has waited too long to allow them to finally become 
American citizens.
  Friday's ruling is yet another reminder of the hell that these young 
people have put up with over the past two decades. Under the Trump 
administration, Dreamers endured one attack after another.
  When former President Trump attempted to repeal DACA, it put hundreds 
of thousands of young people at risk of being deported to countries 
they didn't even remember.
  When the Supreme Court ruled that the former President's repeal of 
DACA was unlawful, he simply defied the Court's decision and stopped 
DACA applicants from being approved. For months, President Trump 
refused to reopen the program for new applicants despite the clear 
direction of the U.S. Supreme Court. Approximately 300,000 of these 
young people were unable to receive the protections they deserved 
because of President Trump's unilateral, hateful action.
  In response to a court order, DACA was finally reopened for the new 
applicants in December, but now, just as the Biden administration is 
processing these applications, the door was shut again in the Federal 
court in Texas on Friday.
  In the words of one Dreamer, Adonias Arevalo, ``It's such an 
uncertainty, not to be able to plan my life.''
  Thankfully, President Biden has vowed to appeal this decision, but we 
need to prevent conservative judicial activists on the bench, 
politicians in black robes, from striking down the President's lawful 
efforts to protect Dreamers. Congress cannot wait any longer. America 
cannot wait any longer. Senate Democrats need to provide a permanent 
legislative solution for the Dreamers. We need to act swiftly.
  I hope that my Republican colleagues with conscience will think long 
and hard about whether they are going to stand in the way of the 
Dreamers at this moment in history. We need their help, and not just 
some halfhearted symbolic attempt but genuinely to give these young 
people a fighting chance to make America a better nation.
  To all the Dreamers out there, I promise you, we will work as hard as 
necessary to get this job done as quickly as possible.

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