Senator Richard J. Durbin spoke to a crowd of capped and gowned young people, pumping then up with encouraging words as sustenance for their journey ahead. “When I look around this room, I see America’s future,” he said.
But the remarks of Mr. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, were not delivered to a crowd waiting to hear “Pomp and Circumstance.” Instead, he was speaking Tuesday to an overflowing audience of students and supporters at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee to discuss bringing the legislation known as Dream Act back before Congress.
Mr. Durbin has long championed the measure, which provides a six-year path to permanent residency for some children of illegal immigrants. Under the act, the specifically defined group of people can attain full United States citizenship if they keep their criminal record clean, graduate high school and attend college or join the military.
The measure was sidelined by a Senate filibuster in September, but Mr. Durbin is hoping it can be passed this year with help from key members of the Obama administration, including Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, and Arne Duncan, education secretary, both of whom testified in support of the bill Tuesday.
Without the act, many of the high school graduates attending the hearing will not have a shot at a college commencement.
“It goes against our national interest to deny these students a college education,” Mr. Duncan said, predicting that their personal enrichment will help supply America’s need for citizens who can out-innovate competitors. Citing figures provided by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Duncan added that legalizing some of the children of illegal immigrants could add $1.7 billion to the economy over 10 years.
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pressed Ms. Napolitano on a stipulation in the act that would give her the authority to waive educational requirements for some Dream Act applicants on a case-by-case basis.
He said he was uncomfortable with that stipulation, as well as another that allows participants to be convicted of two misdemeanors before being expelled from the program. “In New York, sexual assault of a minor in the third degree is a misdemeanor,” he said.
She responded by telling Mr. Cornyn that, given the limits of her department’s budget, deporting teenagers who have spent much of their lives in the United States and hope to enroll in college “does not fall within our enforcement priorities.”