[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 108 (Thursday, July 25, 2013)] [Senate] [Pages S5950-S5952] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] IMMIGRATION Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, America has a rich history of immigration. We are a nation of immigrants. There is hardly a person in America today who doesn't have an immigrant parent, grandparent, or at least someone in their lineage who came to this country from another place. I have told this story many times on the floor: My mother was an immigrant. She was brought to America at the age of 2 from Lithuania. Her son now stands in the Senate. That is my story, that is my family's story, but it is America's story. It can be repeated over and over and over again. We think about the Statue of Liberty and how it thrills so many people to [[Page S5951]] see it for the first time and then to understand the message of the Statue of Liberty: To ``lift my lamp beside that golden door'' so that people are welcomed to this country. We knew it from the beginning: It was the key to our future. So many times this issue of immigration is overlooked. It is such a critical part of who we are in America. Think back in your own family history--one generation, two or three generations--to a person in a foreign land who said one day, ``We are going to America,'' who undoubtedly was questioned about that decision: You are going to a place you have never been, to a place where they don't speak our language, to a place where they eat different kinds of food? That will be quite a challenge. Well, it was. Millions of people made that trip and came to this country facing that challenge, and they made us who we are today. In the DNA of most of us who live in America is some little chromosome that said there is a courage to move and a courage to come, and I think it makes us better. I think immigration is one of the most important parts of America. Thank goodness immigration continues because it brings to our shores amazing people, new generations of leaders who found companies and worked hard so their children and their children's children will do better. If that is a fact about America and our history of immigration, there is also another fact. There have always been haters--people who hate immigrants. I don't know when it started. Maybe after the Mayflower landed, the folks got off and said: Please don't send us any more. But it has been part of American history and part of American political history and part of the Congress. I was reading a book as we started to debate the question of immigration reform entitled ``Coming To America'' by Roger Daniels, and it is a history of immigration in America. It speaks of a Member of the House of Representatives in 1924 named Albert Johnson. He was a Republican from Washington State. When I read this book on the history of immigration, I came up with some interesting quotes. It is in 1924. Albert Johnson, a Republican from Washington State, is chairing the House Committee on Immigration. This is what he said: Today, instead of a well-knit homogeneous citizenry, we have a body politic made up of all and every diverse element. Today, instead of a nation descended from generations of free men bred to a knowledge of the principles and practice of self-government, of liberty under law, we have a heterogeneous population no small proportion of which is sprung from races that, throughout the centuries, have known no liberty at all. . . . Congressman Johnson said: Our capacity to maintain our cherished institutions stands diluted by a stream of alien blood with all its inherited misconceptions respecting the relationships of the governing power to the governed. It is no wonder, therefore, that the myth of the melting pot has been discredited. He said: The United States is our land. We intend to maintain it so. The day of unalloyed welcome to all peoples, the day of indiscriminate acceptance of all races, has definitely ended. That was a statement made by a Member of Congress in 1924. You read it today and you think to yourself, how could anyone possibly be talking about racial purity in the United States of America, as he did? It draws so many terrifying parallels to a debate that happened not many years later in Europe over racial purity, but it happened. And it happened in the U.S. Congress. Sadly, that was not the end of hatred toward immigration in the U.S. Congress. Twelve years ago I introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act was a response to a constituent case in my office. A young woman, a Korean woman in Chicago, called our office. She had a story to tell. She said that she had brought her daughter at the age of 2 from Korea to the United States, to Chicago, on a visitor's visa, along with her husband. They envisioned that her husband would open a church. They looked forward to that day, and it never happened. Her husband continued to pray for that miracle for their family, but the mother said: I have to go to work. The mother went to work in a drycleaning establishment in Chicago. If you have been to that wonderful city, you know that the majority of drycleaning establishments are run by Korean families--hard-working people who work 12 hours a day and do not think twice about doing it. Well, this woman went to work, but she was not making much money, and her little girl, as well as the girl's brother and sister, grew up in deepest poverty. The little girl tells the story that when she went to middle school and high school, she would wait until the end of the lunch hour, when students were throwing away the part of their lunch they did not eat, and she would dig through the wastebasket to find food. That is how poor they were. But something came along in her life that made all the difference in the world. In Chicago we have something called the MERIT Music Program. A woman decided 10 or 15 years ago to leave some money, and she said: Use this money to provide musical instruments to children, poor children in public schools, as well as the lessons they need so they can play the instruments. The MERIT Music Program is an amazing success. One hundred percent of the students who are enrolled in that MERIT Music Program go to college--100 percent. Well, this little girl, this Korean immigrant girl, was brought into the program and introduced at the age of 12 to a piano for the first time. She fell in love with the piano, and she started working and practicing on it. She would stay at MERIT Music Program headquarters late into the night. They finally gave her a key because it was warm and she wanted to practice her piano. She became such an accomplished pianist that by the time she was in high school she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music and the Manhattan Conservatory of Music--amazing for this poor Korean girl. When she applied and went through filling out the application, she came to the line that said ``nationally and citizenship,'' and she turned to her mother and said: What do I put here? Her mom said: I don't know. We brought you here at the age of 2, and we never filed any papers. The girl said: What are we going to do? The mom said: Let's call Senator Durbin. So they called our office, and we checked on the law. The law in the United States is very clear and very cruel. The law in the United States said that little girl had to leave this country for 10 years and apply to come back--10 years. She had been brought here at the age of 2. She was only 17 or 18 at the time. Well, that is when I decided to introduce the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act said that if you were brought here as a child to the United States, if you complete high school, if you have no criminal record of any concern and you are prepared to either enlist in our military or finish at least 2 years of college, we will put you on a path to becoming a citizen of the United States of America. That was the DREAM Act, introduced 12 years ago, called on the floor many different times for passage. It finally passed just a few weeks ago as part of comprehensive immigration reform. I might tell you the end of the story about this young girl. She did not qualify for any financial assistance because she was undocumented. Two families in Chicago and one woman who is an amazing friend of mine named Joan Harris said they would pay for her education. She went to the Manhattan Conservatory of Music. She excelled in the piano. She played at Carnegie Hall. She married an American jazz musician and became a citizen of the United States, and now she is working on her Ph.D. in music. She just sent me her tape for her Ph.D., and she is amazing. Tereza Lee is her name. She is the first DREAMer, and it is because of her that I come to the floor today. You see, just yesterday it was disclosed that a Member of the House of Representatives, Congressman Steven King of Iowa, spoke to the issue of the DREAMers. I do not know how many DREAMers--students who would qualify for the DREAM Act-- Congressman King has met. I have met hundreds of them. They are amazing, incredible, living their entire lives in the United States undocumented, fearing deportation any minute of any day, wondering [[Page S5952]] what tomorrow will bring, standing up in the classrooms of America and pledging allegiance to the only flag they have ever known, singing the only national anthem they know, and being told by so many people: You don't belong here. You are not part of this country. They are completely conflicted and worried and uncertain about their future, and they are nothing short of amazing. These young people have done things with their lives that are just incredible. They are the valedictorians of their classes in many cases. They have gone on to college and paid for it out of their pocket in many cases. I have come to the floor on 54 different occasions with colored photos of these DREAMers from all over the United States, when they gave us the permission to disclose their identities, and told their stories. And every time I have told that story about that DREAMer, someone has stopped me in the hall and said: That is an amazing story about this young person who just wants to be part of the United States and its future. So it was troubling yesterday to pick up and read the quote from Steven King, who is a Congressman from Iowa. Mr. King is no newcomer when it comes to criticizing immigration. He introduced a bill 3 or 4 weeks ago in the House of Representatives that would have removed all of the Federal funds that are being used now to spare these DREAMers in the United States from deportation. In other words, the President has issued an Executive order so the young people who are eligible for the DREAM Act can stay. He wanted to remove all the funds so they would have to be deported immediately. He called that for a vote. It passed in the U.S. House of Representatives just a few weeks ago, overwhelmingly supported by his Republican side of the aisle. So Steven King has a record of opposing immigration and doing it in a very forceful way. But they found a quote he had made, a statement he had made on the issue of DREAMers, and that is why I come to the floor today. In an interview with Radio Iowa, Mr. King said yesterday, as reported in the Washington Post: ``It seems as though I have a few critics out there, but those who have been advocating for the DREAM Act have been trying to make it about valedictorians,'' King said in an interview with Radio Iowa. ``I don't disagree that there are DREAMers that are valedictorians, but it also would legalize those that are smuggling drugs into the United States.'' In his original comments, Congressman King of Iowa said, ``For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds--and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.'' In his interview Tuesday evening, [Congressman King] doubled down on those comments-- According to the Washington Post-- saying, ``We have people that are mules, that are drug mules, that are hauling drugs across the border and you can tell by their physical characteristics what they've been doing it for months.'' Mr. President, if you are going to be part of this political business, you better have a pretty tough spine and a pretty hard shell because people throw criticism around all the time, and if you cannot take it, this ain't beanbag, do something else. But I deeply resent what was said by Congressman King about these DREAMers. It is totally unfair. It is mean, and it is hateful. Do not take my word for it; take the words of the Republican leaders who responded to Mr. King. House Speaker John Boehner, commenting on Congressman King's comments, called them ``wrong'' and ``hateful.'' That is from Speaker Boehner. House majority leader Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, said they were ``inexcusable.'' During a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Representative Joseph Garcia, Democrat of Florida, described King's words as ``beneath the dignity of this body.'' Representative Raul Labrador, Republican of Idaho, who has been heavily involved in immigration reform, expressed hope Wednesday that King regretted his remarks. ``There's nobody in the conference who would say such a thing and I hope that he, if he thought about it, he wouldn't say such a thing again,'' Labrador said. It is heartening to know that Members of Congressman King's own political party--Republicans--have stated unequivocally how awful his statement was. It troubles me and it is heartbreaking to think that these DREAMers--these young people who are simply asking for a chance to be part of the United States--would be characterized as dope smugglers and drug smugglers. Obviously, Congressman King has never read the DREAM Act because if you have ever been convicted of a crime, you cannot be approved through the DREAM Act for citizenship--not a serious crime. That is part of the law. He should know better, but I am not sure that he cares. I am glad Members of his own party have stepped up and branded these comments for what they are. What I have to say to him is, take a moment away from the media, meet some of these DREAMers, and hear their stories. Hear what they have been through, and hear about what they want to do with their lives for the future of the United States of America. To the DREAMers themselves, this is not the first criticism they have run into. They have taken a lot. They are courageous young men and women. When I started this trek, this 12-year trek on the DREAM Act, I used to give speeches in Chicago about the bill, and there would be audiences full of Hispanics usually. Nothing much would be said. I would go out to my car afterward, and in the darkness there would be a couple students waiting by the car. They would call me to the side, after they looked both ways to make sure no one was around, and they would say: Senator, we are DREAMers. We are counting on you to give us a chance. Over the years, these young people who waited to greet me in the darkness when no one was around have now stepped up. They are identifying who they are so America knows what is at stake. When you meet the DREAMers, you will realize how awful and wrong these statements by Congressman King are. There will always be critics of immigration in America. It is part of our national tradition. But I do believe the vast majority of Americans are fair people. They are people who believe in justice. They do not believe that a child--that a child--should be held responsible for any wrongdoing by their parent. If their parent brought them to the United States as a baby, they had no voice in that decision. Why should they be penalized for that decision? They should be given their own chance to become part of this Nation's future. I will close by saying that maybe Tereza Lee was not the first DREAMer in my life. My mother was brought here at the age of 2 and certainly did not have much of a voice in the decision to come to America. But thank goodness her mother and father decided to make that trip and that my grandparents located in Illinois and gave me a chance to grow up in a great place with a great family. That is my story, and that is America's story. Mr. President, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, Senator Durbin is such an eloquent champion for righting injustice, and I am always impressed with him, and I do agree that the American people are good and decent people. They want the right thing. They want the right thing on immigration. Part of that is a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interests of our country. We disagree on how to get there sometimes, but you cannot dispute the passion of Senator Durbin. ____________________