On the recordDecember 6, 2022
If I may, I just want to say that the Dreamer issue is not about immigrants, it is about America. Dreamers are the perfect kind of immigrant that you want in this country. They follow the law. They pay taxes. They are either gainfully employed or have to be studying in order to qualify as a Dreamer under the DACA program. Now, 70 to 80 percent of all Americas, Democrats and Republicans, support a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. They are our friends. They are our neighbors, firefighters, police officers, and they also serve in the military. Here is a poster of one of my constituents, Jose Angel Garibay. He was the first servicemember from Orange County to make the ultimate sacrifice for America after 9/11 in Iraq. He died as a Dreamer, as a noncitizen. Later on, this body saw it appropriate to give him U.S. citizenship posthumously. Jose shouldn't have waited until after he passed away to become a U.S. citizen because he made the ultimate sacrifice for his new country--the only country he knew, the United States of America. Madam Speaker, I am proud to inform you that I represent probably the largest number of Dreamers in the country: Orange County, California. Orange County, the county that Ronald Reagan used to say was the place that good Republicans would go to die. Not very long ago, my daughter came home with two of her very good friends, and they were both very scared and crying. They said: We are Dreamers. Are we going to be deported? What do we do?…
