Speech #CREC-2017-09-06-pt1-PgS4988_t5

President Trump wants us to turn our backs on 800,000 Dreamers, including nearly 8,000 Dreamers in Massachusetts. He doesn't want us to look at these young people and see them for who they are; he just wants us to see them as threats. After all, he launched his campaign by calling immigrants rapists and criminals, and that is exactly what he wants everyone else to see. I would like to introduce three Dreamers from Massachusetts and let the American people decide if that is true. Reina Guevara fled from El Salvador when she was only 11 years old. She is a model student. She won a scholarship, and right now she is working on her bachelor's degree at UMass Boston. Before the DACA Program allowed her to come out of the shadows, Reina worked up to 70 hours a week in a restaurant for a boss who sexually harassed her. On multiple occasions, he propositioned her to have a sexual relationship with him, threatening to call immigration on her if she refused his advances. The harassment became so frequent and so bad that Reina decided to quit her job, forgoing critical income. Knowing there was no one for her to tell, her boss refused to pay her for her last 2 weeks of work. Reina was an easy target. A woman without official immigration status was a woman who couldn't complain to HR when she was assaulted, underpaid, or made to work in dangerous conditions. A woman without immigration status was a woman who knew that speaking up could mean immediate deportation. When Reina entered the DACA Program, her life changed. It meant she could stand up for herself without being afraid that she would be kicked out of America. I asked Reina what DACA means to her. This is what she told me: ``DACA to me means the opportunity to be the first one in my family to graduate with a Bachelor's Degree, to work without the fear of being humiliated and exploited due to my status.'' Donald Trump wants Reina banished from our country. Bruno Villegas McCubbin was 6 years old when he left his home. Like most parents, Bruno's mother and father wanted to keep their children safe.