Last night, the House passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act, which was co-led by Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03). The bill includes a pathway to citizenship for Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Delayed Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients who meet certain criteria. Before the vote, Phillips spoke on the House Floor in support of the bill and its impacts on Minnesota’s Liberian and immigrant communities.
 

Click here to watch Rep. Phillips’s remarks
 

Rep. Phillips’s remarks as prepared:
 

Madame Speaker, this bill is long overdue in Minnesota.

We are home to a thriving community of Liberian refugees who fled two civil wars and an Ebola outbreak – refugees like my friend Louise Stevens.

She escaped civil war, left her life behind and slept on a friend’s floor for over a year for a chance at the American Dream.

Now she is over 60. She has worked hard in Minnesota’s health care industry for 18 years. She is the mother of American children. She pays taxes, and she is here legally under DED.

But because of that DED status, she still has no path to citizenship.

The same is true for thousands of Liberians in America.

I am proud to help lead the Dream and Promise Act and finally, at long last, change that…

To give Louise, Liberians, Dreamers and TPS holders a road to citizenship…

So the American Dream can, at long last, be their reality.

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