On the recordMarch 31, 2011
I stand today to ask my colleagues to help American families and children. I join my good friend Congressman Luis Gutierrez on acknowledging the many children, the talented children that are in our schools that deserve the best education, along with all of our children who happen to have been in this country most of their lives but they're undocumented. They are called the DREAM Act children, the children who are our future engineers and doctors, teachers and train workers, bus workers--people who help build America. It is time now to support comprehensive immigration reform. It's time now to distinguish between the bad guys, whom all of us want to be see deported, versus these young children who are valedictorians and salutatorians, who are athletes, who are men and women in the United States military, who are seeking to be part of the pillars of this community. I want to join in standing alongside these American families and children, not to break up families who are raising wonderful Americans but yet are not statused because of the way their families came to seek an opportunity. Comprehensive immigration reform is the answer, but we must protect the DREAM Act children. ____________________
