It has
been a struggle. When I couldn't pass the Dream Act or get 60 votes in the Senate, I
went to President Obama and begged him to help, and he did. He created
DACA. By Presidential Executive order, he created an opportunity for
ultimately 780,000 young people to step up and get protection from
deportation and the right to legally work in America. It has been an
amazing experience. As Senator Graham said, it is hard to pick any large population in
this country and not end up with some people who would embarrass you or
some bad apples, but I will tell you consistently, over and over again,
these young people, these Dreamers, these young people protected by
DACA, have shown us over and over again why they have earned our
confidence and trust. They worked so hard to be part of this country. Those of us who were lucky enough to be born here never went through
what they have gone through--learning that you are undocumented,
realizing the doors are closed automatically no matter how good you are
and how hard you work--and they kept at it. I want to tell you, we
should be proud of them, and we should embrace them as the future of
America because they bring so many talents, skills, and good values to
our country. With the DACA Program in place and all the people protected, the new
President came in and said: I am going to end it. On September 5 of
last year, he announced that it would end as of March 5 this year, and
as of October 1, they would stop renewing the DACA protection. What has happened is that 16,000 of these DACA-protected young people
have fallen out of protected status. Luckily, a California court last
week said: Keep protecting them until we resolve some of the issues. So
they have a temporary, momentary protective order that they can turn to
when it comes to this California decision, but there is no certainty of
what happens next. When I hear Senator McConnell and others come to the floor and say
there is no hurry, I invite them to meet some of these young people. I
met a group in New York. There were about 12 of them in college, DACA-
protected. They are working to get through college because they don't
qualify for any program assistance because they are undocumented. As
they went around the room, they said: Senator, we want to each tell you
something. Five hundred days. Four hundred and twenty days. Each one of them was telling me how many days they have left of DACA
protection before they were subject to deportation and could no longer
legally work in America. To say there is no hurry is to overlook the
obvious. These young people are torn apart. Their families are torn
apart because of our lack of action. Senator Graham and I decided to do something about it, and we invited
some good friends to join us. On the Democratic side, Michael Bennet of
Colorado and Robert Menendez of New Jersey--we have been through this
war before when we worked on comprehensive immigration reform. On the
Republican side, Senator Gardner of Colorado; Senator Flake of Arizona,
who is on the floor; and Senator Graham. And we worked at it for a
long, long time. We had moments that looked like we were going to fall
apart and never reach a conclusion, and we finally came together. Last Tuesday, a week ago, when the President invited 26 of us to the
White House and made his plea that we do something, we decided to sit
down and do it, and we did. In a matter of 24 to 48 hours, we reached a
final agreement on this bipartisan approach to deal with this issue of
DACA. That is what we presented to the President when we went to the
White House last Thursday. I couldn't agree with Senator Graham more that the President of last
Tuesday is the one we need again--that President who said to us that
what we are doing is an act of love; that President who said to us:
Send me a bill. I will sign it, and I will take the political heat;
that President who agreed with us that you couldn't do everything in
immigration reform in one bill but you had to divide it. He agreed with
that. I agree with him.
Keywords matched
immigration undocumented DACA deportation