Immigration

America is a nation of immigrants. People come here to build better lives, raise their families, work hard, and contribute to their communities. But America’s immigration system is broken.

Comprehensive immigration reform will jump start our economy, lower our deficit, and create jobs.  Currently, more than 14 million undocumented people live and work in the United States, many of whom have lived here their entire lives. We owe it to millions of Americans and aspiring citizens to consider this issue seriously and produce a solution. 

I have always stood with DREAMers. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program gave young people who were brought here as children an opportunity to live, work, go to school, and contribute to the only country many of them have ever known. President Trump’s decision to terminate DACA was a cruel and broken promise. In 2019, I invited Alex DeLeon, a DACA recipient, to the State of the Union as my guest. Alex’s story is the story of so many DREAMers: talented, hardworking young people who have built their lives here and deserve the chance to build their futures here, too. Their lives are a reminder of what is at stake—and why we cannot give up on finally fixing our broken immigration system.

But what we are seeing from the Trump administration today goes far beyond immigration enforcement. It is a campaign of fear and intimidation that is tearing families and communities apart. ICE agents are conducting raids and street-level arrests, people are being ripped away from their families, and communities across California and the country are living in fear of what could happen next. This is not what public safety looks like. It is not what accountability looks like. And it is not who we should be as a country.

That is why I have repeatedly voted against giving ICE and the Department of Homeland Security a blank check to carry out this administration’s lawless agenda. I voted against House Republicans’ latest reconciliation package, which would provide tens of billions of dollars in new funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection while rejecting meaningful accountability and oversight. I also voted against the second three-bill minibus and the separate Homeland Security funding bill. I cannot in good conscience send billions of taxpayer dollars to an agency that is operating without the guardrails and accountability.

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