Act is supported by a broad bipartisan coalition in the Senate. and by religious leaders. immigrant advocates. and educators from across the political spectrum and around the country. Our coalition will fight to ensure that the DREAM Act is included in the conference report. I am also very pleased that we were able to remove some of the bills harshest provisions during the Judiciarj Committee markup. The original version of this bill would have taken the unprecedented step of criminalizing people based solely on their immigration status. That is not the way we should treat immigrants in our country. And that is not the way our criminal justice system works. We punish people for their conduct. not their status. Criminalizing immigrants will not help us to combat illegal Immigration. Our Government does not have the time or resources to prosecute and incarcerate 12 million people. Enacting yet another law that would not be enforced will not solve the problem of illegal immigration. In fact. it would make the problem worse. If we make undocumented immigrants into criminals. we will drive them further into the shadows. This will harm our national security because we will be unable to identify who is in our country. This is also a moral issue.
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undocumented immigrant immigration immigrants illegal Immigration illegal immigration