For weeks now, Congressional Republicans have been embroiled in fight with each other over a DHS funding bill that would end DACA and DAPA for millions of DREAMers and immigrant parents.
The House and Senate could pass a clean funding bill — as Democrats have been insisting — but apparently for Republicans, attacking immigrant families is more important than funding DHS and keeping the nation secure.
It’s why Senator Dick Durbin has been highlighting DREAMer stories from the Senate floor for the past few weeks. These young DREAMers will be the teachers, doctors, and leaders of tomorrow, but Republicans would rather see them kicked out of the only country they’ve ever known than giving them a chance to become Americans on paper.
One of these DREAMers is New Latthivongskorn. Born in Thailand, he was brought to the U.S. at age 9 and was raised in San Francisco, CA.
New remembers getting ridiculed by classmates as he tried to adjust to the English language — but by the time he graduated high school, he was salutatorian of his class with a 4.3 grade point average.
“I spent most of my time at the restaurant working as a waiter, cashier, and chef, scrubbing toilets, washing dishes, and mopping floors,” New remembers about his after-school job at his family’s business. “It taught me to have faith, work hard, and persevere.”
With dreams of becoming a doctor, New’s perseverance paid off when he was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley with a scholarship that would have covered most of his tuition. But because of his immigration status, he sadly had to turn it down.
Despite the setback, New waged forward, graduating with honors and a major in Molecular and Cellular Biology.
But New’s American story didn’t end there. Just one month after graduating, President Obama announced the DACA program, letting New pursue his dream. Since then, he’s started medical school at the prestigious University of California, San Francisco and has co-founded Pre-Health DREAMers, a network of hundreds of other DREAMers pursuing careers in health and medicine.
As immigration reporter Esther Lee of ThinkProgress so brilliantly points out, New could one day save my life or yours. So why do Republicans want to expel a young man who has so much to offer our country?
Watch Sen. Durbin speaking about New on the Senate floor, below:
