Speech #1140036673

Mr. President. today I come to the Senate floor with some good news from my home State of Maine. World Refugee Day is this Saturday. and I would like to highlight an organization that sprung up spontaneously in one of our Maine cities that is really making a difference in the lives of young people. particularly young refugees from Somalia. Sudan. and other African countries. helping them to expand their own horizons. As the roots of our refugee and immigrant population continue to grow stronger in Maine and in the process strengthen our communities. a group called Tree Street Youth is helping to nurture that growth one student at a time. I have visited the Tree Street Youth. and it is an amazing program. Maines history. like the rest of America. is inexorably linked to immigration. With the exception of our native tribes. we are all from somewhere else originally. It began with European immigrants from England. Scotland. and Ireland. People with French heritage came down from Canada. and Swedes settled in northern Aroostook County in Maine. African Americans were brought here against their will. but they became part of the stock of this country. For years. immigrants in Maine found work in mills. farms. and fields. and now their descendants are our leadersbusiness leaders. political leaders. our neighbors. our friends. and our family. Just as previous waves of immigrants have come to Maine in search of a better life for themselves and their children. newer immigrantsincluding refugees. asylees. and asylum seekers from Somalia. South Sudan. and several central African countriesare making new homes in Maine and making Maine more diverse. more dynamic. and a better place in the process. I think it is important to point out that these refugees are people we have. in effect. invited to come to this country because the conditions in their former countries were so unstable or because they feared persecution. These people are not illegal immigrants. They are people. and they are not illegal aliens. They are people here under a legal process. They are looking for a new start. and they are willing to work hard. as we learned in Maine.