(gentle music) (birds chirping)
- Good afternoon, everybody.
This morning, Secretary Napolitano announced new actions
my administration will take
to mend our nation's immigration policy
to make it more fair, more efficient,
and more just,
specifically for certain young people
sometimes called dreamers.
The Department of Homeland Security
is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation
from these young people.
How you doing?
(indistinct chatter)
(gentle music continues)
- Come on, everybody
Sit down, sit down.
I think my main message on this 10th anniversary
is to thank you
and the hundreds of thousands that you represent
because had it not been for your courage
and example that you set
we might not have gotten this done.
- I am a resident physician training in pediatrics
but I was actually born in Ecuador
and I came here when I was two years old.
Given my experiences growing up in an undocumented family
that made me more passionate about health disparities.
I would not have been able to even volunteer at a hospital
without passing a background check.
And then when DACA was finally introduced
that simple thing as passing a background check
opened up so many opportunities.
And now getting to kind of come full circle
and give back has been incredibly, incredibly rewarding.
- When I was campaigning back in 2007, 2008
one of the issues that I campaigned on
was reforming our broken immigration system.
I would meet young people
who had been brought to this country at a very early age,
they had grown up here in the United States,
were as American as Malia or Sasha were
in terms of their values, their upbringing,
their experiences.
They loved this country deeply.
And yet because of a piece of paper,
their lives were extraordinarily vulnerable.
Part of what I want to get a sense of
is just how DACA shaped your path.
- I was born in Nepal
and my family and I moved to the United States
when I was six years old.
I attended public institutions my entire life
because of the support the school offered
for DACA recipients
now I will be attending the University of Oxford
as a Rhodes Scholar.
I've always learned
that the people closest to the problems
are the one closest to the solutions.
So I hope to get some education
and then come back to the US and work on immigration policy.
- I came to the US at the age of five with my mom
seeking better opportunities.
I would go to high school and see immigration vans.
Rather than calling the police,
I begged the bus driver to let me on the bus.
I didn't want police to come back and talk to my mom
'cause I didn't know what that situation was gonna be like.
And I think DACA's just been that safety, that security.
And so it's just been really powerful
for me to be able to hope, right?
And not live in fear.
- I'm a third year medical student.
I'm also getting my masters in public health.
- Because you weren't busy enough with medical school?
- (chuckles) Yes.
- I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.
My family is Pakistani.
We came to the states when I was four years old.
It's actually my mom's dream for her children
to get the best education as possible
and for ways to rise up.
I hope to work in primary care in underserved communities.
- I met you in 2012,
we were hoping to learn how to organize.
And you and I spoke,
and you said, organize, organize, organize.
And we've been doing that for the last 13 years.
- That's fantastic.
- Yeah.
I think ultimately, as a DACA recipient myself,
doing the electoral work,
my only question is what do we do next?
- Yeah.
I hope all of you continue to be advocates
in whatever your professional lives are.
I think that it is going to be a long road for us.
And so the more voices like yours are out there
the better chance we have of changing people's attitudes.
Part of the reason why we feel like it's important
on this 10th anniversary to highlight it
is 'cause it's not done.
Having seen the remarkable things
that this group of DACA kids have done with their lives,
what an asset they are to this country,
I hope it inspires us to redouble our efforts
to permanently resolve their status
and to do something about our immigration system
that both is consistent with us being a nation of laws
but also us being a nation immigrants.
And I hope that their stories reaffirm
the need for us to come up with a smart, orderly,
but also compassionate immigration system
'cause our work isn't yet done.
(gentle music plays out)