Earlier this month, House Republicans made funding for the Department of Homeland Security contingent on overturning DACA and DAPA — and now they’re waiting for Senate Republicans to do the same. More than half a million DACA-mented young people in the last two years have flourished as a result of being able to legally work and drive — but Republicans are now trying to take that all away, on threat of national security funding for the entire nation.
Sen. Dick Durbin has been taking to the Senate floor to explain just what a giant mistake Republicans are making. He’s been lifting up DACA stories — the successes of young immigrants across the nation who are living the American Dream because of executive action. Today he told the story of Karen Villagomez, who was brought to the US when she was only two years old and raised in Chicago, Illinois.
In May 2012, Karen graduated from the University of Rochester in New York with a major in political science. She was the first person in her family to graduate from a 4-year college. One month after Karen graduated, President Obama announced DACA. After she received DACA, Karen found a job as a paralegal at a law firm in Chicago, where she has been working for the last two years. This fall, she will begin law school.
As Karen said recently:
DACA represents the values and heritage of this country of immigrants; it was the right thing to do and it has changed my life by replacing fear with hope. This executive action gave me an overwhelming sense of relief and hope. It lifted me from the shadows.
Watch Sen. Durbin speak about Karen and the GOP’s foolhardy plan to deport DREAMers like her: