Speech #CREC-2017-09-06-pt1-PgS4988_t9

President, we are here to stand this afternoon for close to 800,000 young men and women--10,000 of them are living in Connecticut--who have relied on a promise, not just any old promise but a promise from the United States of America. The promise to them was that they could come forward, share information about their cell phones, their addresses, their relatives, their workplaces, their tax information, and they would be permitted to live here, study here, work here, and give back to their communities. Now America is breaking that promise and betraying its values in the decision by the President of the United States to end the DACA Program. This decision is repugnant to the basic ideals of America. It is repulsive to the values that underlie the rule of law. I heard a commentator last night saying: You know, these DACA people, when they came here, they broke the law. Think of it for a moment. A 2- year old, a 3-year old brought by their parents, maybe by a stranger, maybe by other relatives, is breaking the law because that relative then failed to go through the steps necessary for documentation. Or there may have been a variety of other circumstances, such as persecution, threatened death and injury in the country where that young man or woman was born. But we know--because it is part of the DACA Program--that they were minors when they came here. They made no decision to break the law. They have been here for their entire lives, except for a few months or years.