WASHINGTON (CN) — Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans contended Wednesday that now is not the time to consider a legislative effort to protect undocumented youth, pointing to what they said was a more urgent need to crack down on illegal immigration.
Democrats on Capitol Hill have long called for a pathway to permanent residency for people who immigrated illegally to the U.S. as children, often known as "Dreamers." Lawmakers have failed on several occasions, as far back as 2007, to pass the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow young people to earn legal resident status and secure work authorization.
Despite those missteps, the Senate is once again trying its hand at passing such a measure.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham reintroduced the DREAM Act last year. If made law, the legislation would give undocumented youth a pathway to permanent residency if they pass security checks and meet a list of criteria.
As the Judiciary Committee met Wednesday to examine the challenges facing "Dreamers," Durbin — who chairs the panel — argued his legislation was more necessary now than ever before.
“The time is long past due for Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for 'Dreamers,'” the Illinois Democrat said.
Durbin pointed out that congressional inaction on the issue forced executive action, referring to the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program established by then-President Barack Obama.
But DACA, he said, “was always intended to be a temporary stopgap until Congress acts on a permanent solution.”
The Obama-era program, which allows immigrants in the U.S. without permission to defer deportation and work in the U.S., has also been under threat in recent years. Then-President Donald Trump tried unsuccessfully to end DACA in 2017, and a 2021 ruling in the Southern District of Texas blocked U.S. immigration officials from accepting new applications.
If DACA is canceled entirely, many people who immigrated to the U.S. as children could stand to lose their jobs and homes or even face deportation.
California Senator Alex Padilla, chair of the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subpanel, concurred with his colleague, saying that DACA recipients and young people like them “live in uncertainty and constant fear of deportation from the only home they’ve ever known.”
“Whether you’re Democrat or Republican,” he said, “I think we can all agree that it is past time to modernize our outdated immigration system.”
While the Senate’s latest crack at the DREAM Act enjoyed bipartisan support at its inception, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee signaled things had changed given the current immigration climate.
“Unfortunately, since we started this discussion, the last three years have been a complete and utter disaster for American immigration,” said Graham, the Judiciary Committee’s Republican ranking member.
Pointing to what he called a “completely open” Southwestern border, South Carolina senator worried that passing legislation giving immigrants a pathway to residency would incentivize even further illegal immigration and said that he didn’t foresee a bill like the DREAM Act clearing Congress anytime soon.
“Legalizing everybody in this environment — whatever problems you have will get exponentially worse,” Graham said. “Fixing DACA is not my concern right now. My concern is regaining control over our sovereignty that has been lost.”
Texas Senator John Cornyn, ranking member of Judiciary’s immigration subcommittee, said he was sympathetic to the plight of "Dreamers" but that lawmakers needed to focus on “fixing a broken system.”
“Legal, orderly and humane immigration policy has been the lifeblood of America,” he said. “But that’s not what we’re talking about.”
Cornyn placed the blame at the feet of the Obama administration, whose DACA policy he said was unlawful and led young people “to believe that this somehow provided a form foundation for their integration” into the U.S.
At least one witness invited to testify Wednesday agreed with this interpretation.
“The arguments for DACA amnesty, or any amnesty, might be more compelling if we had not just gone through three years of an uncontrolled border and did not just have to absorb six or seven million new illegal migrants,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank.
Democrats countered they are equally concerned about border security and protecting undocumented youth.
“Congress should act to secure the border,” Durbin said. “These are not mutually exclusive goals.”
The Judiciary Committee chair pointed out that the Senate had been prepared to move forward with border security legislation earlier this year, but Republicans opposed it.
The measure fizzled out in February after GOP angst over its provisions and opposition by Trump pushed many Republicans to vote against it. Ultimately, only four GOP lawmakers voted to advance the bill.
Meanwhile, "Dreamers" and immigration policy experts joined lawmakers Wednesday to advocate for congressional action.
Tom Wong, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, and the director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center, argued that codifying a pathway to residency for the children of immigrants here illegally would be good for the economy.
Some estimates, he said, predict that "Dreamers" with U.S. work authorizations could add almost $800 million to the country’s GDP, adding that the Congressional Budget Office has forecast that migrant workers will add $7 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next decade.
Mitchell Soto-Rodriguez, a police officer in Blue Island, Illinois, and a DACA recipient, explained what was at stake for her if the program were to be rescinded without a legislative backup.
“I will lose everything,” she said, “my job, and probably even my home. I wouldn’t be able to support my family financially.”
Soto-Rodriguez pointed out that, as a member of law enforcement, she puts her life on the line for a country in which she is not a full citizen.
“We’re not asking for handouts,” she told lawmakers. “We’re asking for confirmation of our humanity and our contribution to this nation.”
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