Bill to allow DREAMers to emerge from the shadows deserves bipartisan support | Opinion
Florida is home to almost 25,000 undocumented people who were brought to the United States at a young age. They came through no fault of their own. These DREAMers, who go to our schools, are friends with our children, and are our neighbors and colleagues, deserve an opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
It is time Congress work together in a bipartisan manner to allow them to come out of the shadows and continue contributing to our communities without the fear of retribution. Last month, I joined with several other Republicans in the U.S. House in voting for the American Dream and Promise Act to extend legal protections for DREAMers. They would allow DREAMers to get a driver’s license, go to school, legally obtain work, own a home and fully integrate into the country they consider home.
The legislation was by no means perfect. No legislation that comes out of a partisan, gridlocked process is perfect, and this legislation is far from the ideal solution. Despite banning gang members from falling into this protected status, in its current form, this bill does not allow immigration officials to use local, state and national databases to identify gang members. The bill also moves the entry deadline up by four years, allowing 18-year-olds to come to the United States just before the January deadline and qualify for protected status, disregarding the original intent of DACA recipients to be for young children.
As this bill and other legislative proposals make their way through the Senate process, I urge senators to move forward on a clean version of the bill and to eliminate these poison pills. We cannot wait any longer to fix the dire situation facing DREAMers who are already here. The majority of Americans support extending protections to DREAMers, and by politicizing the process the way House leadership did, we are only making it more difficult to build on that consensus and deliver meaningful results.
In a broader context, Congress must work together to solve the immigration crisis at hand. In partnership with the administration, we must work quickly and decisively on actions that will secure our southern border, first and foremost, meets the economic needs of the United States and establishes an immigration system that does not put migrants who entered the country illegally ahead of those who followed the rules.
Several weeks ago, I joined Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and several other colleagues in El Paso, Texas, to visit the border. While there, I met a Honduran family with young children. When I asked why they had chosen to make the journey to the United States, they indicated that President Biden’s policies and rhetoric would make it easier for them to be successful in immigrating here illegally. When we talked to Customs and Border Protection agents, many agreed with the premise that the current policies and rhetoric, which include halting the construction of the border wall, are an invitation to make the trip. It is clear that we must continue to explicitly enforce our immigration laws and secure the border by fortifying physical barriers and technological capacities to halt illegal crossings.
The United States must also flex its foreign policy toward Latin America to disincentivize illegal immigration. With the Marshall Plan serving as a model, rapid investments by the international community into Latin America, particularly Central America, will help create important industries and improve sociopolitical conditions — the very reason why so many decide to try to enter the United States. As former Vice President Mike Pence told then-Argentina President Mauricio Macri in an official trip through Latin America, “The advancement of freedom and democracy in Latin America benefits the cause for freedom everywhere.”
By making an earnest effort to extend legal protections to DREAMers, implement bold strategies to secure the southern border and re-engage with our Latin American partners, I am confident that we can begin to move toward a comprehensive fix the nation’s immigration crisis.
I am committed to building a country that works for all people willing to follow the rules and work toward a better life. It is an incredible honor to represent the diverse, patriotic, hardworking people of South Florida. America has a lot to learn from Florida’s success as a state where our differences are valued for their ability to make us stronger.
We never lose sight of the ideals that unite us — no matter how different our backgrounds or immigration statuses may be.
U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez represents Florida’s 26th congressional district in Miami-Dade County, where he was mayor from 2011 to 2020.
