Hoyer Remarks at a Press Conference With AAPI DREAMers on the Need to Bring the DREAM Act to the Floor

Press Conference

House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined a press conference with the AAPI Immigrant Rights Organizing Table and the UndocuBlack Network to call on Republicans to bring the DREAM Act to the Floor by the end of the year. Below is a transcript of his remarks:

"Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for beating the drum…You are here to redeem the DREAM, to redeem the promise of America that opens its door, lifts its lamp, and is the hope of much of the world. And you came to America not of your own choice, but you came to America, you grew up in America, you know America, you are Americans in everything but a little piece of paper.

"And the President of the United States has said he loves you. You heard him, "I love the DREAMers.' And he has said, if we pass the DREAM Act, he will sign it. That's good news. That gives us hope, and it's the reason we're here, to say, to the leadership in the House and the leadership in the Senate, redeem that dream and put the act on the Floor because it will pass. It probably will have somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred votes.

"We have been telling people that we Democrats are absolutely committed to the passage of this DREAM Act this year. Paul Ryan urged the President not to withdraw the protections for DREAMers. I hate to mention this name, Rush Limbaugh says "we're not going to send the DREAMers back.' Now when you have Rush Limbaugh saying that and you've got 86% of Americans saying we should not send DREAMers to a land they do not know, to a place where they did not grow up, they need to stay here and help America be even greater, which is what everybody who has come to this country, with some exceptions, has done.

"So I'm pleased to join all of you in this effort to raise our voices and to raise the consciousness of the Congress of the United States. Put that DREAM Act on the Floor, it'll pass. It'll pass because democracy works and if you put that bill on the Floor the majority of the Representatives of the citizens of America will vote to say, keep the DREAMers here. We need them, they're positive contributors to our society, and as President Trump says, we love them.

"God bless you, keep on keepin' on."

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