I thank my colleague Senator Durbin for organizing today's remarks,
as well as for his years of leadership and tireless advocacy on behalf
of the Dreamers, along with Senator Graham, who is leading this very
important bill with Senator Durbin. It is critically important that the Senate pass the Dream Act and not
wait any longer to take action. There are 22,000 eligible DACA
recipients who did not meet the administration's deadline to renew
their statuses, and as a result, about 122 Dreamers are now losing
their DACA statuses every day. That is more than 11,000 who have
already lost their statuses as of today, and that number will continue
to increase every single day that we fail to act. This is nothing on
which we can wait--wait a week, wait 1 month, wait 2 months. Every
single day, it affects more people. So, while some have suggested that
we wait until March to fix this issue, the reality is that the Senate
needs to take action now. Since it was first established in 2012, DACA has helped nearly
800,000 young people who have lived since childhood in the United
States to better contribute to their families and communities,
including more than 6,000 who are in my State. I recently met with the
archbishop of the Twin Cities, along with some of these Dreamers, and
we talked about how important this was to the fabric of life in our
community, to our economy in Minnesota--where we have one of the lowest
unemployment rates in the country--to the Dreamers, and to their
communities, themselves. The Dreamers were brought to our country as children, and they know
only one home.