We do not use kids and families as some
kind of bargaining chip for legislation. That is not who we are. This
decision will not only hurt families and communities, but it will hurt
our economy, as 90 percent of DACA recipients work, and 7 in 10 have
bachelor's degrees or higher. They pay taxes. Over the next 2 years,
ending DACA could force hundreds of thousands of people to lose their
jobs. Colorado alone stands to lose over $850 million in economic
activity every single year as a result of this rash decision. That is
why business leaders all across my State have decried this decision as
not only cruel but costly. President Trump campaigned to strengthen families and our economy. With this decision, he is taking aim at both. Now parents all across
America are planning where to send their kids if they are deported. Young professionals worry about what will happen to their mortgages,
their car payments, and their student loans if they are fired and
forced to leave. Business owners wonder how they will make up for the
hard workers whom they have come to rely on over the years. Once again,
President Trump has unleashed needless anxiety and uncertainty across
America. This weekend, I was thinking we would never have been in this
position if Congress had acted to fix our broken immigration system to
ensure legal status for everybody protected by deferred action. Like
the Presiding Officer, I was part of the Gang of 8, which wrote the
immigration bill in the Senate. It was four Democrats and four
Republicans who worked together over a period of 8 months in a process
that I think the American people would be justifiably proud of. For
once in Washington, people sat down in a bipartisan way to actually
solve the problems that face this country.
Keywords matched
deported immigration DACA