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PANDEMIC OF THE UNVACCINATED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York (Mr. Suozzi) for 5 minutes.
Mr. SUOZZI. Madam Speaker, I have two unrelated topics that really got me going this morning.
The first is vaccinations. Over 40 percent of Americans are still not vaccinated. I mean, come on, what is going on? We need to wake up, America. We need to get vaccinated.
People are saying, ``I want to live free or die.'' Well, people are living free and other people are dying. We need to get everyone vaccinated. Cases are rising every day. It is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
Madam Speaker, 97 percent of hospitalizations are unvaccinated; 99 percent of the COVID deaths are unvaccinated. We need to wake up.
There are people using social media poisoning the American people's minds and jeopardizing their health in the process. We need to work together to convince people that vaccinations are safe and that it makes sense to get vaccinated.
I want to applaud Steve Scalise and Mitch McConnell for getting vaccinated and promoting it to the American people. We need everyone in this body to please do the same. You need to get vaccinated, not only for yourself, not only for your family, do it for other families, do it for the country, do it so the economy can stay strong.
Please, get vaccinated.
DACA Program
Mr. SUOZZI. Madam Speaker, the second topic I would bring up is the Dreamers; the DACA program.
So many families are living every day with so much stress and anxiety because of their immigration status.
Last week, a Federal judge ruled that DACA must end, causing more anxiety and stress for these families. Congress should fix this. Give a pathway to legalization and citizenship, for Dreamers, for TPS recipients, and for the farm workers and other essential workers that make our country work. This is personal for me.
Madam Speaker, 100 years ago, August 22 of 1921, my father was born in a small medieval village on the mountains of Southern Italy. He immigrated to the United States as a young boy. He was the first kid from the neighborhood to go to college. He fought in World War II as a navigator on a B-24 and got the Distinguished Flying Cross. He came home and went to Harvard Law School on the GI Bill.
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My father would always say, ``What a country.'' He went on to live a great American success story. So, like I said, this is personal for me.
Twenty-seven years ago, I served as the young mayor of my hometown, the city of Glen Cove, New York. I addressed the growing issue of new immigrants from Central and South America who were gathering on street corners looking for work by creating the first day-workers site anywhere on the East Coast of the United States of America in 1994.
I relied on a fundamental American principle: All men and women are created equal. It is not that all men and women with a passport are created equal, or all men and women with a green card are created equal. Every human being should be treated with human respect and dignity, and we have failed to address this problem for 30 years.
Those same men who gathered on the street corners 27 years ago now have their own businesses, own their own homes, and their children went to school with my children.
One Dreamer graduated high school with my daughter, went on to graduate from college with a degree in biomedical engineering, got a master's degree in biomedical engineering, and is now pursuing a doctorate in the same subject. But, now, he is suffering every day, worrying about his immigration status, worried about how this court ruling will affect him and his family.
Dreamers have been shaken yet again. Let's fix this. Let's do it. Dreamers are ready to live the same American success story that my father lived.
Let's give Dreamers, TPS recipients, farmworkers, and other essential workers a path to citizenship, and let's do it now.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 128
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