All across this country undocumented immigrants are living in fear of seeing their families torn apart because of our broken immigration system.
Many of those immigrants are children who were brought here at a young age through no fault of their own. They have gone to school and aspire to one day go to college, serve in the military, or build a business.
Their parents dream of providing a better life for their family, by working hard, paying their taxes and providing opportunity for their children.
They are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, soldiers and students.
They are American in every way, except on a piece of paper. And that is why their lives can be torn apart at any time.
Kids live in fear that their parents won't be home when they get back from school or that their aunts and uncles will be rounded up leaving church. Parents worry that they will be detained at work and nobody will be there to care for their children when they get home.
This is why the president used his prosecutorial discretion to make lawful changes to the immigration law, just like the ten previous presidents before him had done.
The president took common sense actions to ensure that families were not ripped apart, people were brought out of the shadows and that the parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents would be protected from deportation.
He acted by making narrow, limited changes to current immigration law. Expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA+) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) allow undocumented children, who were brought to country through no fault of their own and undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, who have been in the country for five years, to get temporary protection from deportation.
Despite clear legal precedent dating back to the Eisenhower administration, Republicans continue their political vendetta against immigration reform. They sought out one of the most conservative judges in Texas in the most conservative Circuit Court District in the country where the state of Texas' flimsy court case could pass muster. This has always been politically motivated from the start.
The Supreme Court now has the opportunity to put an end to this political battle. The fact that House Republicans held an "extraordinary" vote on the floor for Members to register their positions on a Supreme Court case tells you all you need to know about the politics behind this whole court case.
I am very confident, that even though the court is not full due to Republican obstructionism, that it will rule decisively in favor of the President and his lawful immigration actions. This is why I joined with my colleagues in signing an amicus brief in support of the President's actions.
That is why Democrats and President Obama fought hard to pass immigration reform in Congress. We saw the heartbreak and the impact it had on our communities. We knew the system was broken and that the only way to truly fix our immigration systems once and for all was to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
The president was right to take lawful action once it became clear that a comprehensive fix to the immigration system was unattainable. The policies he aims to implement are not comprehensive immigration reform and are no substitute for Congress doing its job by passing immigration reform. But it does use prosecutorial discretion to focus on wrongdoers, not those working, studying and contributing to their country.
These actions will keep families together instead of tearing them apart. The Supreme Court should clearly see that that the arguments against these actions are politically motivated and are not backed by legal standing.
It is vital that these lawful actions are allowed to stand and be implemented.