At the same time address this issue of chain migration. You know, i have to call on my colleagues and President Trump to really stop using that term and abandon the offensive and misleading term of chain migration because it paints a picture that does not reflect reality. Immigrants cant sponsor entire families to come here. Our system allows american citizens and green card holders to join their families in the United States. There are numerous steps that families must take to legally immigrate to the United States. It is a long and arduous process that leaves husbands, wives, brothers, parents, waiting for decades. Many people die before they have a chance to be reunited with their loved ones again. So this image of immigrants coming in chains across our border couldnt be farther from the truth. The Immigration Service is processing visa applicationings for u. S. Citizens from 1994. That is 24 years ago. This backlog is painful for Many American families like feli. Feli is an immigrant from the philippines and arrived in the United States with her husband and youngest son in 1989. Her father is a veteran who served in world war ii, earned his citizenship and filed to have feli join her in the u. S. She has worked tirelessly to rejoin her children. Now at 80 years old, she is hoping that three of her children will make it through the backlog to join her at home. Sponsor family members is a lengthy and difficult process. Tragically her struggle is not uncommon. Thousands of filipino veterans all across the country are in the same situation. As the daughter and granddaughter of veterans, i know firsthand when someone answers the call of duty, family members make sacrifices too. I support senator hirnos family reunification act that would expedite the world war ii veterans. We should pass this bill and not force them to wait in perpetual limbo. Our immigration system is important for the family unit. Families are support systems. They pull each other up when someone is in need and pull together their resources. Strong Families Build strong communities. Take karls family. Karl is a 20yearold Filipino AmericanCommunity Organizer born and raised in are north las vegas. Karls whole family is committed to community service. Karls brother volunteers to serve the homeless and attends high school. His mother teaches. His dad is a mechanic and military veteran having served this country in multiple branches of the armed services. None of them would be here if not for our familybased Legal Immigration system. You know, mr. President , some of my republican colleagues claim to be champions of Strong Nuclear families and family values. Yet, here we are today considering a measure that would tear apart families like karls, that would leave parents without children, sisters without brothers, and husbands without wives. Why does the party of family values think thats acceptable . The problem is that the party of donald trump is not the party of family values. Donald trump doesnt care about families. He wants to be able to pick and choose which families get to come in and which have to stay out. The white house immigration plan we are considering would cut Legal Immigration by up to 44 . That is 500,000 more immigrants who will be banned each who would be banned each year. This is one of the largest xenophobic cuts to Legal Immigration since the 1920s. It would affect nearly 22 Million People over the next five decades. Whats going on here . What are they so afraid of . I recently sat down with immigrant workers in the senate and the pentagon who are about to lose their protections from deportation. One of them told me that she left el salvador after seeing her husband brutally murdered in front of her and her son. She has been working for the federal government for the past twoing two decades serving the very men and women who are preparing to vote to send her back to the country she fled with her country. I also spoke with a dreamer who works right here in the senate cafeteria. She is the sole provider for her three american citizen children, and she too is afraid that under Donald Trumps deportation policy, she is going to be ripped apart from her children and sent back to a country that she fled. These are the people donald trump wants to throw out of their homes. They are not asking for special treatment or handouts or giveaways. They just want to be allowed to stay and work hard and provide for their families. They dont want to have to go back to a place where they will have to live every day in fear for their lives and for their childrens lives. This president will tell you that immigrants are taking jobs. That is a myth. Its a lie that has been spread in every immigrant group in American History and has been repeatedly debunked by economic research. According to the National Academy of Sciences NationalResearch Council a typical immigrant family will pay an estimated 80,000 more in taxes than they will receive over their lifetime. They bring longterm economic benefits to our country by starting businesses, purchasing property and supporting the education and achievement of their children. Research shows that immigrants drive growth. They generate two patents at twice the rate of native americans born here. In 2014, they earned 1. 3 trillion and contributed 105 billion in state and local taxes and nearly 224 billion in federal taxes. Immigrants are 30 more likely to start a business in the United States than nonimmigrants and 18 of Small Business owners in the United States are immigrants. They create jobs right here in the United States. Jobs are not the problem here. The problem is the color of immigrants skin. We have a president of the United States who has wondered out loud why we cant have more whites come to this country. President trump denies being a racist for. For a nonracist hes done a good job of cultivating support among white supremacists. Mr. President , this is not about the color of peoples skin. This is about families. This is about Strong Nuclear families and family values. I am proud of who i am, where i came from, and i am a descendant of immigrants. But i also learned and believe in strong values and Strong Family values, and we lead with those values. So, mr. President , our immigration system should reflect our National Commitment to the strength and the importance of that family unit and those family values. It makes no sense to me that we are fighting today to protect these kids and keep them in this country and then take their parents and rip them out of the homes and send them back to a country that they do not want to go to, that they do not call home, and where their safety is called into question. I dont understand that as a family value or an american value. So i ask my colleagues when we are talking about these immigration system and protecting dreamers, lets implement commonsense immigration reform. Lets make sure when were protecting dreamers, were also protecting their family unit and those family values. This is not about pitting parents against their kids or having kids decide whether they should stay here or their parents should. No child should have to go to school concerned that when they come home their parents may not be there. I dont know about you, but i went through the Public School system in the state of nevada, and i was always, always comforted with the thought that when i walked through that door my mother and father would be there. Any other way to treat these children and their families, to me, is inhumane. They are not values we stand for as americans and they are not values we lead with when were talking about commonsense reforms to immigration. So i ask my colleagues, please, as we go through this debate, remember who we are talking about. They are faces, they are families, they are people behind the very decisions that we make this week. So thank you, mr. President , and i yield the floor. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from new mexico. Mr. Heinrich i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Heinrich mr. President , as the senate takes to the floor to debate a long overdue bipartisan solution for dreamers, young immigrants who came to our country as children, i would like to tell you a story about one dreamer in my home state of new mexico to illustrate just what is at stake here this week. Immigrants have long helped to right the economic and the social and the cultural story of my home state of new mexico. And for that matter, our entire nation. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. And over the last centuries, our Nations Foundation and the enduring american spirit were built by the hard work and the dreams of so many striving young immigrants. When President Trump made the outrageous decision last fall to end the deferred action for childhood arrivals, or daca program, he threw hundreds of thousands of dreamers dupe into fear and dreamers deep into fear and uncertainty. Two weeks ago i was proud to wl yvonne ocosta, one of the estimated 7,000 dreams from new mexico as my guest at the state of the Union Address. Yvonnes family emigrated to the United States when she was 12 years old. She learned english through middle school and graduated high school in astancia, new mexico. It was during these challenges years of learning that yvonne was encouraged by her teachers to grow and to learn. Yvonne knows the power that educators hold to create positive change in the students perspective of themselves. Yvonne attended the university of new mexico, where she earned her b. A. In secondary education with a concentration in spanish. It is estimated that somewhere between 500 and 1,000 students at the university of new mexico right now are dreamers like yvonne. These are some of our brightest students. They are our future leaders. And since she graduated from u. N. M. Four years ago, yvonne has been teaching spanish at the Public Academy for performing arts, a Charter School in albuquerque, new mexico. Yvonne told me about what daca has meant for her. Daca allowed her to get a work permit, to follow her passion for education. It made it possible for her to buy a home and her first car. It has also given her an opportunity to impact the lives of her students each day and to contribute to our states economy as a teacher and as a taxpayer. Daca gave yvonne, in her words, quote, a sliver of hope, hope that she will finally be able to have a permanent home in a place in the only country that she knows how to call home. Because of her excellent teaching in the classroom and her incredible passion for her students, yvonne was just selected as the 2018 new mexico teacher of the year by the new Mexico Public Education department. Thats right, ivonne has been recognized as the teacher of the year for our entire state. Ivonnes commitment to education and to giving back to her community is truly inspiring and it reminds us just how much is at stake for new mexico and our country in this debate. Our state already struggles to keep schools filled with teachers and has one of the highest teacher turnover rates in the nation. Dreamers across the country like ivonne are stepping up to serve our communities, to teach our students. Nearly 9,000 of the dreamers who received temporarily legal status and work permits through the daca program are teachers like ivonne. Many more are firefighters, theyre police officers, theyre scientists, theyre doctors, theyre members of our military. These inspiring young people are americans in every sense of the word except for a piece of paper. And they want nothing more than to be productive members of their communities. But until Congress Passes the dream act, these young people like ivonne will continue to worry about whether they will be able to stay in school, keep working, contributing to our economy or remain even in their homes and their neighborhoods. So i have to ask, why would we even consider threatening to deport the teacher of the year from my state . I simply cannot accept that as living up to all that our nation stands for. A Santa Fe New Mexican covered ivonnes visit to washington. The Editorial Board said that, quote, it is no exaggeration to state that as the immigration debate goes, so does her future. End quote. They went on to call the immigration debate we are engaging in here in congress as a fight, quote, for the soul of this country founded and strengthened by immigrants throughout our history. I for one hope that we can learn from the best and the most challenging parts of our nations history of immigration and understand that dreamers like ivonne are part of the immigration story that has always made our nation great. Deporting these young people who grew up in america and want to contribute to their nation is not the america that i know and love. Dreamers deserve commonsense, compassionate and responsible policy. Two weeks ago while President Trump was taking cheap shots at immigrants during his state of the Union Address and insinuating that all immigrants and Asylum Seekers pose an existential danger to our children and our families, i couldnt help but think of the impacts of his words on ivonne as she sat in the gallery. There are hundreds of thousands of dreamers like her. They are truly bright spots and rising stars in our communities, in our country. The time has come for us to stop playing politics with their lives. Lets stop stirring up fear and division when we should be working to find a real path forward. This week i believe we have a path forward here in the senate in this debate, and we must pass a bipartisan immigration bill that includes the dream act in the senate and in the house. I will do everything i can to pass a solution for dreamers, to create rational Border Security policies, and make the investments that our border region and its communities actually need. And i will stand with new mexicans against President Trumps fearbased and unamerican views, frankly, on immigration and his offensive and wasteful border wall that have no place in this debate. I hope that each of us in this body recognizes our moral responsibility and our obligation to live up to our nations ideals and its values. We must act with a sense of urgency to find a way forward for these dreamers. Every day that passes without us passing the dream act is another day of desperation and limbo for young people like ivonne who only know america as their home. Now is the time to give these Young Americans a permanent place and an earned path to citizenship in our nation, and i will do everything i can ever step of the way to make that happen. Thank you,