The House of Representatives Didn’t Do Right By The DREAMers

Calmes: The Jan. 6 committee did the country proud but it hasn’t changed our calcified politics much | Editorial

WASHINGTON – The day after the House voted to approve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, I was driving past the Capitol and noticed several people who were standing in groups about 70 people away. What caught my attention was that some were standing out in front of the Capitol building, in front of the Smithsonian building, behind the Rayburn House Office Building — the places where the two great monuments are located.

I realized the only people who look out that way are tourists and the other people who are standing around the Capitol were the members of Congress. Everyone else at the Capitol was inside the rooms or on the lawns or on the steps of the steps and the people coming out were the members of Congress.

The House of Representatives had the power to change the lives of the parents of the 800,000 DREAMers who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, to keep them out of prison and give them a new life. It did a beautiful job.

The Senate, by a vote of 50 to 49, did the nation an injustice because it did not follow the House’s lead.

As I drove by and saw the Capitol building was dark except for a handful of lights in the Capitol’s rotunda I thought: The Senate didn’t do right by the DREAMers.

When the Senate voted to strike down President Barack Obama’s DACA program, I was so proud to work with and for my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The day after the Senate’s vote on the bill, the Judiciary Committee held a rare meeting.

I was pleased to see that the two committees that I worked so heavily on, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee held back-to-back hearings, one Thursday and one Friday, looking at the impact of the decision by the Senate to

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