They didn't
know what was happening to them, a 1-year-old, 2-year-old, 5-year-old,
7- or 8-year-old. It wasn't their choice and yet they are paying the
price for what happened. There is no question, we need immigration reform--no question at all. I was very proud and pleased to support a major effort a few years ago,
a bipartisan effort in the Senate to do comprehensive immigration
reform. It is something we need because our system is broken. There is
no question. It hurts families, workers, businesses, and farmers in
Michigan every single day, but targeting these almost 800,000 young
people does nothing to solve that problem. I am anxious to work with colleagues across the aisle to address
comprehensive reform so we have a legal system that works, but we have,
again, about 800,000 young people right now who stepped forward and are
covered by something called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
Program, or DACA, who were told, if they would step forward, provide
the government all of their personal information, information about
their families, that they--as long as they were following the rules,
they were going to school, they were going to college, they were
serving in the military, they were doing the right thing--would be
allowed to stay and be successful in our country. In Michigan alone, 10,000 young people have been approved for DACA. Those are some of the numbers, but we are not talking about numbers, as
we know. We are talking about people's lives.
Keywords matched
immigration DACA