Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin announced plans to bring an undocumented medical student as a guest to President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
Durbin is one of the most vocal defenders of Barack Obama’s executive action giving legal status to millions of children of illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for years. He said he is honored to bring Aaima Sayed, a third-year medical student at Loyola University Chicago, to Trump’s speech to Congress.
The Illinois Democrat has been pressing Trump to exclude these children, known as Dreamers, from any efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants.
Durbin he hopes Aaima’s presence reminds Trump “what’s at stake” in the debate over whether to overturn Obama’s “dreamer” executive order – “the lives of more than 750,000 innocent young people and the well-being of entire communities.”
Earlier this year, Durbin reintroduced a bipartisan bill to ensure that dreamers remain protected from deportation during the Trump administration. The measure would cement Obama’s executive order to provide temporary relief from deportation, as well as work authorization for young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
