Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate 20171221 : vi

CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate December 21, 2017

Policies overnight, but we can and we should pass the dream act as soon as possible. And thats why we need more members of congress on both sides of the aisle ready to roll up their sleeves and get this done. Because every single day that Republican Leaders refuse to bring the dream act to the floor to a vote, another 122 young people lose their daca status. They lose their ability to work legally. And they lose their protection from deportation. That means every day 122 of our neighbors, students, coworkers, friends could be forced from the only country they know despite the promise the federal government made to them when they signed up for daca. And despite their immeasurable contributions to our schools, our hospitals, our universities, our stores, our farms, our churches, and our offices and so much more. That means small and Large Businesses are forced to lay off daca resip yentsdzs recipients each day. Vital employees that businesses have invested money in to train and support, employees that help our economy and the Small Business in my state grow. My friends on the other side of the aisle are constantly claiming they want to help our Small Businesses grow. I listened to weeks of their speeches on this as they tried to justify the tax bill. But instead of a giveaway to the wealthiest 1 , one way my friends across the aisle could actually help Small Businesses is to bring the dream act up for a vote. Now, this morning, i had the great honor of sitting down with dreamers who traveled all the way here from my state across the nation to fight for action. Young people who had no control over how they came to this country but have made conscious choices to improve their lives and make life better for their community. They are passionate. They are frustrated and their stories need to be heard. Here is just one of them. Paul was brought here to this country at the age of 7 to be reunited with his father. Paul excelled in school and pasco, washington, not far from where my own dad grew up. Paul and his parents worried that despite pauls success in k12, going to college, starting a career might be impossible. But daca provided him and his family with stability. Paul went to gonzaga, university, in spokane, washington, as a double major in Political Science and economics and he now works in our state legislature. Now, with daca in question, its not just paul who isnt sure what comes next for him but also his younger brother, jose. Jose who was only 2 years old when he came here. He grew up seeing what paul, his older brother, was able to achieve. He saw that daca allowed paul to live without that constant fear. Jose was ready to follow in pauls footsteps and enroll in the daca program so he could pursue his dream of an engineering degree at the university of washington. Now if congress doesnt act, we will have one less engineer in this country. Mr. President , paul and jose are just great examples of dreamers who have worked hard. They have aimed high. And they participate in their community and our economy making our country a better place. This country should be rolling out the welcome mat to our dreamers, not slamming the door shot on them. And thats why im here today with my colleagues to echo their fear and frustration on the floor of the United States senate and to call on Republican Leaders to work with us. Stop letting so many promising young men and women fall off the rolls of this program each and every day. Stop kicking this can down the road. Come together to do what is right for these young people. Ending the daca program is not what our country is all about. It doesnt do anything to fix our immigration system, prepare for our future, or grow our economy. Ending daca wont heal the devices weve seen in our communities or make them any easier to fix and ending the daca program certainly doesnt reflect a country of opportunity or promise, something the u. S. Has always aspired to be. I urge my colleagues here in the senate and over in the house think about the communities you represent, think about the young men and women who are currently studying for finals or caring for our sick or teaching our children or responding to natural disasters or opening businesses in the communities you travel to and live in. Think about the young men and women who hope to serve in our military and defend your freedoms some day. Think of the dreamers who have grown up in our country and whose children are the future of our nation. Think about how much good we could do for these young men and women if my republican friends brought the same commitment and zeal to this task as they did to their tax bill. And finally, work with democrats to find a real solution to end this unnecessary uncertainty. Mr. President , i want to thank paul as well as all the other advocates from my state whom i met with in my office this morning and the many thousands of others who are showing up in every way that they can do to make their voices heard and call on us here in congress to cant a. Dr. Martin luther king once said that justice too long delayed is justice denied. And dreamers are not asking for anything other than what we have promised to them. This is an incredibly difficult and uncertain time for so many people, but dreamers need to know many of us in congress and so many across the country have your back. We will get this done. We have to get this done. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from massachusetts. Ms. Warren thank you, mr. President. Just yesterday the Republicancontrolled Congress passed a massive tax giveaway that will shovel truckloads of money into the pockets of giant corporations and the super rich while it leaves working families behind. And thats just the latest in a laundry list of presents that have been dolled out to folks at the top. For everyone else, its been one broken promise after another. And one of those promises was to protect 800,000 dreamers who were brought to the United States as kids. Trump broke this promise when he ended daca, the program that allows dreamers to live, work, and study in the United States without fear of being deported to countries they barely know. And because trump broke his promise, its up to congress to stand up and protect dreamers and passing a dream act, that gives a path of citizenship to those young people. I want to introduce you to one of those dreamers, alie yas rosen felt. He was 6 years old when his parents brought him and his sister to the United States. Now, he doesnt have many memories of his life in venezuela, but he does hear stories from his parents and his grandfather about the everyday risks that they faced. One day while his mother was driving, she pulled up to a stoplight and a man pulled a gun on her. Another day his grandfather withdrew money from an a. T. M. And then was robbed at gun point. So when alias mother, an executive at a multimedia company, had the opportunity to transfer to a office in miami, florida, she jumped at it. His family came to the United States legally. They applied for and they received a visa that allows executives and managers from other countries to work in the United States and eventually apply for permanent resident status. Under that visa, the entire family would become permanent residents and would never have to worry about losing their status in the United States. Permanent, thats the key word here. Well, at least that had been their plan. Only things didnt go the way they had been planned. When elias was 11, his mother died of cancer. Now, he didnt know it at the time but the day his mother died, elias and his family lost their path to permanent resident status and became undocumented. After his mother died, elias clung to the belief that an education was his ticket to a better life. He challenged himself academically taking 13 advanced placement courses and earning as in almost every class. He also juggled a number of Extracurricular Activities including speech, debate, student government, volunteering with children and the homeless, and starting his schools first traveling model united nations. His excellence earned him a place on the deans list as well as a long list of award, including the miamidade Homeless Trust change maker award. Now, elias so impressed the school staff that his High School Activities director called elias a hero and said, quote, ive been teaching for 20 years and i have never seen a student like this young man. Scholarship committees also recognized elias accomplishments and he won a coveted myra craft Transitional Year Program scholarship which provided him a full ride to brandeis university, in waltham, massachusetts. He is now a sophomore at brandeis where he continues to make his mark. Before daca came along, elias lived in constant fear that i. C. E. Would break down his door and deport him and his sister. Daca changed his life. The fear subsided. He knew i. C. E. Agents wouldnt break down his door or seize him on his way to school. Elias has told me daca has been a source of optimism and a light of protection. America is the only country that elias knows. Its the only country that many dreamers know. This is their home. Dreamers like elias have had the courage to step forward. They have come out of the shadows to tell their stories. Now, congress could show some courage and protect dreamers by passing a clean dream act. We have waited too long already. Every day that we delay, more than a hundred dreamers lose protected status. They must return to the shadows. They must think about i. C. E. Agents breaking down their doors or seizing them if they go to school or to work. The time for congress to act is now, right now, today. We should not leave here so that we can celebrate the holidays with our families while nearly 800,000 dreamers fear being ripped apart from their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers, and deported to a country they barely know. If we held a vote today on the dream act, it would pass. So my question to senator mcconnell is this. What are you waiting for . Let us vote. Thank you, mr. President. I yield. The presiding officer the senator from virginia. Mr. Kaine mr. President , i also rise to advocate the passage of a clean dream act now. I had a youngster say to me and im going to tell the stories of a few of the youngsters but at an event in november who is a dreamer in Northern Virginia, you may say im a dreamer but im not the only one. Its a beautiful line as we know from the song imagine by john lennon. 800,000 dreamers in this country, more than 800,000. More than 13,000 of the dreamers live in virginia, and theyre from all corners of the world. Ive met with dreamers in virginia who were originally born in sweden, nigeria, latin america. Many countries in asia. They are a rainbow but also a source of strength for our country and we need to act on their behalf. I also stand here in the Christmas Spirit and so many of us will hear the retelling of the christmas story and in the aftermath of the birth of the poor child in the manger, the story goes he was taken by his parents to another country, essentially as a refugee. There were threats of violence against the first born children of the land. So he was spirited across a border into egypt to be protected. I know many of these dreamers and i know so many like them. I worked as a missionary in honduras in 1980 and 1981 and had the opportunity to work with youngsters in a country that was then and still is beset with violence and poverty and where so many parents have to make an agonizing choice and in some instances they make the choice to try to find a better land for their children, just as jesus and mary did as they fled to egypt at the Christmas Season more than 2,000 years ago. And so i stand here in that moment, in that spirit, knowing that there are that hundreds of thousands of dreamers who need our protection and, frankly, deserve it. Are we less compassionate than those societies of old that have found refuge for those who have come fleeing hardship . I dont believe we are. I know the American Public isnt. I know the virginia public isnt. The question is, is congress as compassionate as we need to be. We tell the story of some of the dreamers in virginia. I made many speeches on this floor and told many of their stories. Juan delerosa is a daca recipient, a richmonder. I actually first kind of came to know juan when i was the mayor of richmond. He arrived at age 5. In a comment to me he said in one way or another, you have always been an active part of teaching me how being involved in the political process is a key toward positive change. He started when he arrived here at 5 years old and he excelled immediately, went to Manchester High School in chesterfield county, was a drum major in the marching band, class representative and president of honors society. After graduating at the top of his class at this competitive suburban high school, he continued at Virginia Tech. At Virginia Tech he started tech dreamers which is a Student Organization there of trying to create a more inclusive environment for the dreamers on the campus. Through tech dreamers hes hosted dialogues around Immigration Reform and other issues, not just with hoak yition but with student hokeys but with students all around virnlings and the country. This past may he graduated magna cum laude from Virginia Tech and continues to be active. He works in the Admissions Office as a dreamer, traveling the country and telling students all over this country about the opportunity that was offered by this Great University in the commonwealth. And he says, quote, all of this would not have been possible had it not been for the opportunities afforded me because of daca. Juan like so many other undocumented young people is the very embodiment of the Virginia Tech motto, the motto of Virginia Tech university is latin for that i may serve. Thats what juan is doing. He wants congress to pass a clean dream act now so theres a permanent solution for he and so many others. Alejandro is the internal president of dreamers of Northern Virginia Community College. I sat down with him a few weeks ago at a roundtable i held with these dreamers from bolivia. Lived there til he was 7. His parents brought him here and he was not fully aware of what it was to be undocumented until he was getting ready to go to college and his parents explained it to him. His favorite thing as a kid growing up in the d. C. Area was to go to the air and space museum. Now hes at Northern Virginia Community College making honors grades, studying to be an aerospace engineer. I sat down at the Richmond Public Library with a group of dreamers. A few of them stopped by my office on a day i wasnt there and asked for a meeting. So we sat down together. Let me tell you about some of them and their parents. Matayo is a dreamer and sophomore at b. C. U. He went to the same high school my daughter went to. My daughter graduated from the Governors School in petersburg in 2013. He was a freshman that year, graduated in 2016. Hes part of a group called undocurams, the organization fostering inclusion for dreamers. His mom came with him to the meeting to show support for her son. Shes heart broken seeing him work so hard. And so afraid of what might happen to him. And so afraid of what might happen to her. And she praised that this system may find a just result for her child and herself. And finally at the same meeting, i had better that, bertha, both a dreamer and a mom. Her parents brought her here in 199le from next 1998 from mexico as a young child. She works at a local catholic church. She volunteers with the p. T. A. At her Childrens School and she coaches her children and other childrens soccer teams. She told me that shes learned the values of volunteering and helping others from being here in the United States. This is interesting, mr. President. I hadnt heard this before. She told me where she came from in mexico, there wasnt a great tradition of volunteer organizations. There was sort of the government and churches. She said, coming to the United States, shes become aware of a whole sector of society that was not familiar to her. Volunteer organizations, groups of people that get together to try to tutor other kids or be big brothers or big sisters. She said what she has learned from the United States more than anything else is this amazing power of volunteerism and the network of social Service Groups that are run by volunteers. She said, i want to be just like that. And thats what shes doing. Why woe we want to we want to lose a mother, a dreamer like her. Folks here on the hill engaged in rallies have explained with tears in their eyes the fear that they feel. They had a president had said some tough things about immigrants. He said that dreamers will have nothing to worry about. These dreamers are good kids and they were taken by complete surprise when in september the president announced that he would terminate the daca program in six months. From that moment it has been unremitting fear for these young people and for their families the only thing in the president s announcement that i think we could probably all agree to, even though i was a strong supporter of president obamas executive action,

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