National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I come to the Senate floor with some good news from my home State of Maine. World Refugee Day is this Saturday, and I would like to highlight an organization that sprung up spontaneously in one of our Maine cities that is really making a difference in the lives of young people, particularly young refugees from Somalia, Sudan, and other African countries, helping them to expand their own horizons.

As the roots of our refugee and immigrant population continue to grow stronger in Maine and in the process strengthen our communities, a group called Tree Street Youth is helping to nurture that growth one student at a time. I have visited the Tree Street Youth, and it is an amazing program.

Maine's history, like the rest of America, is inexorably linked to immigration. With the exception of our native tribes, we are all from somewhere else originally. It began with European immigrants from England, Scotland, and Ireland. People with French heritage came down from Canada, and Swedes settled in northern Aroostook County in Maine. African Americans were brought here against their will, but they became part of the stock of this country. For years, immigrants in Maine found work in mills, farms, and fields, and now their descendants are our leaders--business leaders, political leaders, our neighbors, our friends, and our family.

Just as previous waves of immigrants have come to Maine in search of a better life for themselves and their children, newer immigrants--including refugees, asylees, and asylum seekers from Somalia, South Sudan, and several central African countries--are making new homes in Maine and making Maine more diverse, more dynamic, and a better place in the process.

I think it is important to point out that these refugees are people we have, in effect, invited to come to this country because the conditions in their former countries were so unstable or because they feared persecution.

These people are not illegal immigrants. They are people, and they are not illegal aliens. They are people here under a legal process. They are looking for a new start, and they are willing to work hard, as we learned in Maine. But anyone who finds themselves in an entirely new and unfamiliar situation--in a situation where they may not be familiar with the language--can always use some help and support, and groups such as the Tree Street Youth in Lewiston are so important and can have such a huge impact because they smooth the transition and help promote cooperation and understanding within the community and particularly the transition of young people.

This remarkable organization was founded in 2011 by two former Bates College students located in the city of Lewiston--Julia Sleeper and Kim Sullivan. They recognized the need for such a group--for such a facility. Tree Street Youth is dedicated to supporting young people in the Lewiston-Auburn area through academics, the arts, and athletics. The organization, which originally grew out of a simple after-school homework help program, now provides local youth with a safe space to promote healthy physical, social, emotional, and academic development.

Through its flourishing arts, college prep, and job-training programs, Tree Street is not only giving young people the tools, support, and confidence they need to succeed, but it is also helping to bring all students from all backgrounds in the city of Lewiston together.

Tree Street Youth has proven to be a tremendous resource in Lewiston and Auburn, particularly for young people from immigrant families. The support services and sense of community that is provided there empowers these young people to be independent and productive members of society. While integrating into the community can be difficult for recent immigrants, refugees, and their families, the Tree Street experience helps to connect young people to their peers and to the community as a whole. This is a two-way street of understanding that helps bring our communities together.

For example, Tree Street Youth had an annual banquet this past May, and it was, I am told, a fun and emotional event and a showcase that allowed the Tree Street students to share some of their talents with the Lewiston-Auburn community. I am told that after students gave a variety of inspiring poetry readings, dance, and other performances about their experiences, it was hard to find a dry eye in the house. That really speaks to the life-changing power that this organization has brought to our community.

Just as Tree Street Youth improves young lives, these young people can in turn improve Maine and America. We need motivated, talented, and creative people from all backgrounds if we are going to keep pace with the rest of the world. We need students like Muna Muhammad, whom I met here just a few weeks ago when she represented Maine in the Senate Youth Leadership Program. Muna, whose family is from Somalia, is the president of her class at Lewiston High School, serves as a student representative on the Lewiston school committee, is involved in her school's speech, mock trial, and civil rights teams, and has a long list of other accomplishments. They highlight her remarkable leadership qualities, which radiate when you meet her.

This is what America is all about. It is about families from around the world finding a new start, bringing with them new perspectives, new ideas, and new hope for the future. It is the mainspring of the American experience. It is about a melting pot of peoples, cultures, and ideas that create a tapestry that is much stronger than any single thread.

Welcoming new people and cultures hasn't always been easy, and it is not easy. Sometimes our differences are more immediately apparent than our similarities, but over the years, immigrants and refugees have proven to be an irreplaceable part--the essential part--of who America is.

This wonderful organization started spontaneously in one of our great cities of Maine. Tree Street Youth has proven that support and community engagement can help ease that transition and create a brighter future for those students, for Maine, and for our entire country. That is good news for Maine and good news for the United States.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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