{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases/at-center-for-american-progress-cortez-masto-condemns-trumps-mass-deportation-agenda-shares-vision-for-the-future/", "At Center for American Progress, Cortez Masto Condemns Trump\u2019s Mass Deportation Agenda, Shares Vision for the Future", "2026-07-29", "2026", "2026-07", "Democrat", "Senate", "NV", "Catherine Cortez Masto", "C001113", "www.cortezmasto.senate.gov", "cortezmasto", "https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "***VIDEO AVAILABLE***\n\nFTP for TV stations of her remarks is available here.\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) gave the keynote address at the Center for American Progress for their immigration event, The Cruelty Must End: Better Immigration Policies for a Stronger America. In her remarks, she condemned Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation agenda and attacks on immigrant communities while charting her vision for the future of immigration policy.\n\nThe cornerstone of this vision is the Fairness for Immigrant Families Act, a set of commonsense proposals aimed at fixing America\u2019s broken immigration system and setting up a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who have spent decades living in and contributing to this country. This legislation addresses the outdated laws complicating our immigration system, cracks down on notario fraud, and sets up guardrails against detention and deportation for immigrants who deserve stability, like DACA recipients and parents of U.S. citizens.\n\nBelow are her remarks as prepared for delivery:\n\nThere\u2019s no better time to talk about immigration than right now, on the heels of celebrating 250 years since America\u2019s founding. Because what\u2019s more American than coming to this country to pursue a better life?\n\nThat is the story of our nation. It always has been \u2013 from our Founding Fathers to the hundreds of millions of immigrant families across the United States today.\n\nAnd that\u2019s my story too \u2013 I\u2019m the descendant of Italian and Mexican immigrants.\n\nThe American people know this story well. Immigrants are our neighbors, they\u2019re our community leaders, they\u2019re doctors and teachers and business owners.\n\nAnd despite the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to erase this story from our history, Americans don\u2019t want to see our friends and neighbors terrorized in their own communities.\n\nYou see this in the public\u2019s response to Trump\u2019s mass deportation policies. A majority of people say the administration is going too far on deportations.\n\nBut it\u2019s not enough to say the Trump administration is doing a bad job \u2013 we need to look to the future for solutions. And CAP\u2019s own polling tells us 68% of voters still support a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who have spent decades living in and contributing to our country.\n\nOf course, this doesn\u2019t mean we abandon or ignore concerns about public safety. Americans are anxious about protecting their families from crime. And we know that voters are concerned about border security. That makes sense!\n\nFor decades, our communities have been asking for balanced, common-sense policies that will keep us safe and allow immigrants to come out of the shadows. But for decades, our system has not worked.\n\nThat\u2019s why we need to forge a new way forward in our approach to immigration. To accomplish that, we have to do two things:\n\nWe have to understand how we got here \u2013 that means honestly looking at past and present immigration policy failures\n\nBut more importantly, we have to learn from those mistakes. That means adapting and adjusting our future policies accordingly.\n\nI think I speak for everyone here when I say that we thoroughly understand the failures of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration agenda.\n\nEvery day, we\u2019re hearing about masked agents without identification coming into our neighborhoods with the intention of intimidating and attacking immigrants. ICE agents are attacking peaceful protestors and killing American citizens!\n\nDACA renewals are intentionally being delayed so federal agents can detain and deport Dreamers. Immigrant families, even those with legal status, are afraid to leave their homes and go to work.\n\nIt\u2019s horrific, and it\u2019s unacceptable. And the real-world ripple effects are hurting communities across America.\n\nChildren are being ripped from their parents. Immigrants are unable to live their lives freely. American citizens are being killed. People are losing trust in their government to keep them safe \u2013 and rightfully so.\n\nBut attacking hard-working, tax-paying immigrants is also an attack on our economy. When people are skipping work because they\u2019re afraid they\u2019ll get picked up by ICE, or when a Dreamer\u2019s DACA status lapses because of delays and they lose their work permit \u2013 that hurts our businesses, too.\n\nApproximately 37,000 health care workers are DACA recipients. The damage that could be done to our hospitals if their work permits aren\u2019t renewed is unimaginable.\n\nAnd when anyone can be stopped and detained by ICE based solely on what they look like, that erodes ALL Americans\u2019 civil liberties.\n\nMeanwhile, Republicans in Congress have gifted DHS a $240 billion slush fund to continue their activities. I\u2019m proud of the way my fellow Democrats and I stood against handing ICE and Border Patrol this absurd amount of money.\n\nBut now that they have it in their pockets, we need to be more clear-eyed than ever about the harm this Administration\u2019s policies are doing to our country.\n\nDonald Trump and Stephen Miller\u2019s extreme immigration policies are un-American, and they do not work for our families.\n\nAt the same time, we have to acknowledge that the Biden administration did not handle immigration policy well, either.\n\nWe know there\u2019s no comparison to what President Trump is doing now, but if we want to solve our problems moving forward, we have to accept that reality.\n\nThe Biden administration placed too little emphasis on border security and too much emphasis on supporting the newly arriving asylum seekers, instead of the immigrants who have called this country home for decades.\n\nIn the United States, 26 million people live in a household with at least one undocumented family member, including almost 4.6 million U.S. citizen children. Undocumented immigrants contributed over $37 billion in state and local taxes in 2022.\n\nLong-term, law-abiding undocumented immigrants are woven into the fabric of our communities and are key contributors to the economy. That\u2019s especially true in my home state of Nevada, where about one in four construction workers and one in seven hospitality workers is undocumented.\n\nAt the end of the day, these are people who live across all 50 states, and they\u2019re doing everything right \u2013 they\u2019re working in our communities, they\u2019re contributing to our economy, and they\u2019re following the law.\n\nThey\u2019ve earned the chance to have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.\n\nBut instead, they\u2019re trapped in the endless limbo of our immigration system with no way out. And when an unfriendly administration comes along, like this one, suddenly everything they\u2019ve worked for and the lives they\u2019ve built here are at risk. It\u2019s wrong.\n\nWe have to learn from our past mistakes, stop ignoring the people we should be fighting for, and pass pragmatic policy solutions that allow long-term undocumented immigrants to live freely in the country where they\u2019ve built their lives.\n\nThat is exactly what I\u2019ve been working toward. On Monday, I introduced legislation that would take a much-needed step in that direction.\n\nThe bill is called the Fairness for Immigrant Families Act, and it is focused on that long-term, law-abiding undocumented immigrant population.\n\nThe legislation pulls down some of the arbitrary barriers in our current immigration laws that keep people undocumented with no way of fixing their status. It protects immigrant families from fraud. And it\u2019s been updated to address the new threats we\u2019re seeing under the second Trump administration.\n\nLet me tell you a bit about what this bill does.\n\nIt eliminates the 3- and 10-year bars to reentry that keep people undocumented, because even if they qualify for a visa, they\u2019d have to leave the country, and their families, for years.\n\nIt reestablishes the 245(i) program that would allow undocumented immigrants with U.S. citizen family to pay a fine and adjust their status without leaving the country.\n\nIt also makes it easier for certain undocumented immigrants who are caring for family members to show that they should be able to remain in the United States through the \u201ccancellation of removal\u201d process.\n\nThis bill makes it more difficult to deport parents of U.S. citizen children, DACA recipients, and immigrants with pending applications.\n\nAnd, thanks to the Trump administration\u2019s practice of indefinitely detaining people regardless of whether they\u2019ve committed a crime, this legislation has been updated to protect these groups from indefinite detention.\n\nThe Fairness for Immigrant Families Act also cracks down on fraudulent immigration services, which we know as notario fraud, and gives their victims some grace so they can reopen their cases or withdraw them without penalty.\n\nFinally, this bill builds trust by protecting immigrants who are victims of or witnesses to crimes from being penalized by law enforcement.\n\nEverything I just listed \u2013 those are just the highlights of this bill. I\u2019ve spent years talking with immigrants, attorneys, nonprofit service providers, and other stakeholders in the immigration community, including CAP, to ensure this bill meets the needs of this country and the people who live here.\n\nIt provides stability for the people who have worked hard for years, asking for nothing in return but their chance to pursue the American Dream.\n\nThese fixes are common sense, and they offer pragmatic solutions to our country\u2019s broken immigration system.\n\nFor decades, that is what the American public has been asking for. They want to see criminals face justice, but they also want people who have shown their commitment to our country to be able to stay here and contribute to our communities.\n\nIt\u2019s taken us too long to get it right. But now is our opportunity.\n\nWe have to learn from past mistakes and write a new chapter in our nation\u2019s story \u2013 one where we create policy that benefits the people who know and love this country, whether or not they were born here.\n\nOne where our hardworking neighbors do not have to live their lives in the shadows. And one where the American Dream is within reach for everyone who has earned it.\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-30T07:32:48Z", "2026-07-30T07:34:08Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases/at-center-for-american-progress-cortez-masto-condemns-trumps-mass-deportation-agenda-shares-vision-for-the-future/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5263420064002275, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}