Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the DREAMers issue, DACA recipients, is very personal
for me. My district is 70 percent Latino, and I have an estimated 8,000
DACA recipients. I also have a cousin who is a recipient of DACA. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of recipients who are living
in uncertainty, living in fear, and who tell you firsthand of the sense
of urgency that they feel. It is a sense of urgency that, frankly, I
don't feel is happening here in Congress. Now, I will talk to my colleagues across the aisle, and they will
tell me: ``I support a solution. I want to do something to help DACA
recipients.'' But we can't get a vote. The leadership will not give us
a vote on the Dream Act. They won't give us a vote on any legislation
that involves DACA. Just today, we had White House Chief of Staff Kelly come in to meet
with members of the Hispanic Caucus to talk about this issue. We
continue to hear that the President is committed to finding a fix, yet
he is using DACA recipients as a political pawn, a political pawn to
get a wall that he said Mexico would pay for. Frankly, as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, I know that
putting money into a wall is not the best use of our dollars. This issue is urgent; it is real. These are people's lives. They are
doctors, they are nurses, and they are teachers. In my very district, I have a DACA recipient named Roque Pech. He was
my guest for the State of the Union last year, somebody who is now
teaching our children, somebody who is giving back to our community. DACA recipients are good folks. They are our neighbors. They are our
friends. They are our family members. There is overwhelming support, on
a bipartisan basis, to give them the protections that they need and
deserve. Members of our military who are serving are also DACA
recipients. I urge us all to come together to find a solution, so that we can
deliver on providing the protections that DACA recipients so urgently
need and so urgently want, and stop making this a political football so
that we can also move on to other issues.