Durbin Delivers Opening Statement at Immigration Subcommittee Hearing

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today delivered an opening statement during the “Strengthening our Workforce and Economy through Higher Education and Immigration” Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety hearing. The hearing comes one day before the tenth anniversary of  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). During his opening statement, Durbin highlighted the need for Congress to pass legislation to fix our badly broken immigration system.

Key quotes:

“It was 21 years ago in this room that I first introduced the Dream Act, bipartisan legislation that would give undocumented immigrants who grew up in this country a chance to become a citizen… Eleven years ago, I chaired the first-ever Senate hearing on the Dream Act in this room. We have never been able to get it to the President’s desk, but we are not giving up.”

“Tomorrow as you heard is the tenth anniversary of President Obama’s announcement of DACA. He announced the DACA program after I sent a letter first with Senator Lugar and then a year later with 21 other Senators urging him to do that.”

“It [DACA] has been a dramatic change in the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people across America.  The question now obviously is what are we going to do to fix the problem? The four of us – Senators Tillis, Cornyn, Padilla, and I – have met repeatedly on this.”

“We ought to have a process and I think we can agree on it… I hope we can reach that point. We are lucky to have a number of Senators on this subcommittee who are willing to step up and speak up for solving problems. Let’s solve immigration next.”  

Video of Durbin’s opening statement is available here.

Audio of Durbin’s opening statement is available here.

Footage of Durbin’s opening statement is available here for TV Stations. 

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