Durbin Delivers Opening Statement During Spotlight Forum On Protecting Dreamers, Trump Threats To DACA, Renewed Urgency To Pass The Dream Act

Durbin Delivers Opening Statement During Spotlight Forum On Protecting Dreamers, Trump Threats To DACA, Renewed Urgency To Pass The Dream Act

Witnesses include a wrongfully deported DACA recipient, a wife whose husband is currently wrongfully detained, a police chief, and business and immigration advocates

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and author of the Dream Act, today delivered an opening statement at a spotlight forum he is hosting on the need to protect Dreamers, threats to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and the urgency to pass the bipartisan Dream Act.

Beginning in 2001, Durbin introduced the Dream Act to give young immigrants the chance to earn U.S. citizenship. He has introduced the legislation every Congress since. Over the years, Durbin has told the stories of 150 Dreamers on the Senate floor. At the urging of Durbin and the late Senator Lugar (R-IN), President Obama established DACA in 2012 to allow these young people to gain temporary status.

Key Quotes:

"When DACA went into effect in August 2012, I was at Chicago's Navy Pier. Congressman Luis Gutierrez was with me. We expected several hundreds of people. We hoped to have enough volunteer attorneys to take care of them. It turned out, more than 10,000 showed up… Many of these parents waited hours to get their kids registered for DACA. They would come up to me and say, 'Durbin, we're disclosing all our information about our family to the government. Will they use it against us?' And I said, 'no, you follow the law, you follow the executive order, and we'll be able to help you.' I had no way to imagine what we would face today for those who trusted the government when they signed up."

"We were shocked when thousands of young people showed up [at Navy Pier]. In the end, 830,000 young people became DACA protected. In 2022 alone, DACA recipients contributed nearly $2.1 billion to Social Security and Medicare, working as doctors, teachers, police officers, and more."

"Unfortunately, the [Trump] Administration has launched an assault on DACA. President Trump tried but failed to end the program in his first term, with the courts ultimately blocking that effort. [In his second term], he has tried again."

"My office has heard from constituents who are filing renewals up to 150 days in advance, as recommended by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and still losing their protections due to delayed adjudication. As a result, the number of people with active DACA status has dropped by 32,000. Additionally, USCIS is applying so-called 'processing holds' on applications from DACA recipients from 39 countries which the President said we will accept no one from. And there is no timeline for when processing will resume."

"And, just a few weeks ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals… which has been politicized by the Trump Administration, issued a controversial decision holding that DACA status will no longer necessarily protect [Dreamers] from deportation. According to data from the Administration itself, [DHS] arrested 261 DACA recipients in 2025, and 86 have been removed from the country."

"Let's be clear-the cruelty is the issue here. These are people who have lived in the U.S. for years, graduated alongside our kids, married and had their own U.S. citizen children, and are contributing to our communities."

"I have spent more than 20 years fighting for Dreamers, and I will spend the rest of my time in the Senate continuing that fight."

Video of Durbin's opening statement is available here.

Audio of Durbin's opening statement is available here.

Footage of Durbin's opening statement is available here for TV Stations.

The first Trump Administration's attempts to end the DACA program were deeply unpopular and ultimately blocked in the courts. With an injunction preventing formally ending the program, the second Trump Administration has opted for a collateral attack to strip DACA holders of their protections.

Between January 1 and November 19, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported 261 arrests of DACA holders and 86 deportations, and recent reports show a continuation of these enforcement actions. Processing time delays for DACA renewal applications have skyrocketed, leaving these Dreamers without work authorization or protections from detention and deportation. Despite a court-ordered stay keeping DACA in place for current DACA holders, processing bans on applications from 39 countries have been applied to DACA, leaving hundreds of DACA holders in limbo.

A recent Board of Immigration Appeals decision has paved the way for current DACA holders to be issued removal orders, increasing their likelihood of detention and deportation even with valid DACA authorization. The impacts are even worse for Dreamers who cannot obtain protections pursuant to DACA.

This spotlight forum provides the opportunity to discuss the contributions of DACA holders in our communities; the impacts of these attacks on Dreamers, families, and employers; and the importance of a path to citizenship to provide Dreamers with stability and a chance to stay in the United States, the only home they have ever known.

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