Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has teamed up with Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to press Congress to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. Graham and Durbin have introduced the DREAM Act 2023 to Congress, which if passed would allow those immigrants who were brought into the country as children to earn permanent residence.
Identical legislation to the DREAM Act 2023 has been previously introduced by the two men in each of the past three Congresses, but the legislation never managed to go through.
Graham is a ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee and has often moved away from the Republican party’s position on immigration by supporting legislation like this one which aims to address the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Monday in a news release, he said that he would continue to support legislation that would help Dreamers, but that his support of this legislation did not mean that he did not want to see the border situation fixed by his Democratic colleagues. Still, he maintained that Dreamers are their own class of immigrants as they were brought to America as children, and over the years the U.S. has been their home.
He added that for Dreamers to get the support they need, it was necessary to find ways to curb the wave of illegal immigration
Previous versions of the newly introduced bill were first introduced by Durbin in 2001. However, the then-version of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM Act, did not pass through the Senate.
