Nancy Pelosi has held the U.S. House floor for over eight hours in support of DREAMers

At 7:04 AM this morn­ing Pacif­ic Time, U.S. House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi came to the floor to deliv­er remarks in sup­port of DREAM­ers who are fac­ing the threat of depor­ta­tion by the Trump regime in just a few weeks (aid­ed and abet­ted by Repub­li­cans in Con­gress). Near­ly eight hours lat­er, she was still speak­ing, hav­ing set the record for the longest speech in the his­to­ry of the House.

[Watch Pelosi’s marathon speech on Periscope]

Unlike the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, the U.S. House does­n’t have the fil­i­buster, talk­ing or oth­er­wise. Pelosi’s speech is there­fore not a fil­i­buster. But it’s cer­tain­ly some­thing like one. The rules of the House allow Pelosi, as Minor­i­ty Leader, to speak for as long as she likes. It’s one of the priv­i­leges of being the Leader.

Pelosi has tak­en full advan­tage of that priv­i­lege today, hold­ing the House floor to tell the sto­ries of DREAM­ers all over the coun­try who could be deport­ed if Con­gress does­n’t save the Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals pro­gram (DACA).

Among the sto­ries that Pelosi read was that of Amy Kele, a stu­dent here at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in the great Pacif­ic North­west. Cour­tesy of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal’s office, here’s a video clip of Pelosi read­ing Amy’s sto­ry.

Pelosi also read from the New Tes­ta­ment, incor­po­rat­ing a clin­ic on the Gospel of Matthew into her remarks. As Pelosi not­ed, among the teach­ings of Jesus relat­ed in the Gospel of Matthew is the com­mand­ment that thou shalt love thy neigh­bor.

When the Son of Man comes in his glo­ry, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glo­ri­ous throne, and all the nations will be assem­bled before him. And he will sep­a­rate them one from anoth­er, as a shep­herd sep­a­rates the sheep from the goats.

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right:

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inher­it the king­dom pre­pared for you from the foun­da­tion of the world.”

“For I was hun­gry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you wel­comed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you vis­it­ed me.’”

Then the right­eous will answer him and say, “Lord, when did we see you hun­gry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and wel­come you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and vis­it you?’”

And the king will say to them in reply: “Amen, I say to you, what­ev­er you did for one of these least broth­ers of mine, you did for me.”

— The Gospel of Matthew, 25:31–40

Hour after hour, Pelosi read sto­ry after sto­ry, all while stand­ing in four-inch heels. The sev­en­ty-eight year old Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader is the first woman to have served as the Speak­er of the House in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States; today, she con­tin­ues to serve her coun­try as the cham­ber’s Minor­i­ty Leader.

Long reviled by Repub­li­cans for her effec­tive­ness, Pelosi has large­ly man­aged to hold her cau­cus togeth­er despite inter­nal fis­sures and exter­nal pressures.

With Democ­rats out of pow­er in both hous­es of Con­gress and the Sen­ate hav­ing just reached a deal to keep the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open through the midterms, Pelosi is tak­ing a stand to ensure that DREAM­ers don’t get left by the way­side as Con­gress con­tem­plates send­ing Trump leg­is­la­tion that would appro­pri­ate bil­lions more for the mil­i­tary as well as essen­tial pub­lic services.

In relat­ed news, hun­dreds of peo­ple ral­lied today in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. in sup­port of immi­grant youth and pas­sage of a DREAM Act. Speak­ers and lead­ers from the Wom­en’s March, Cen­ter for Pop­u­lar Democ­ra­cy, Good Jobs Nation, Cen­ter for Com­mu­ni­ty Change, and Unit­ed We Dream participated.

Here’s what these lead­ers had to say about their action.

Ana María Archi­la, co-exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Pop­u­lar Democracy:

The fight for the Dream Act is a fight for the soul of this nation. It is a pro­found moral ques­tion to the coun­try: who are we?

Are we a nation that rips fam­i­lies apart and expelling chil­dren from the place they call home? Or are we a nation that affirms that we belong togeth­er, and that we will take care of each other.

Today, women lead­ers, health care activists, work­ers, faith lead­ers and immi­grant fam­i­lies are stand­ing unit­ed to reject Trump’s White Nation­al­ist vision for coun­try, and call on Con­gress to solve the cri­sis that Trump cre­at­ed for when he end­ed DACA, upend­ing the lives of 800,000 immi­grant youth.

Arlin Tellez Mar­tinez, DACA recip­i­ent from North Car­oli­na and UWD leader:

I moved to D.C. from my home in North Car­oli­na to ded­i­cate myself ful­ly to get Con­gress to pass the Dream Act.

Dur­ing today’s action, it was clear just how pow­er­ful our move­ment and our com­mu­ni­ty is when hun­dreds mobi­lized to fight along­side immi­grant youth. I feel empow­ered to con­tin­ue to fight even when Con­gress fails to pro­tect immi­grant young people.

We will con­tin­ue to make our pres­ence seen and heard because our lives are on the line and we can­not keep waiting.

Mon­i­ca Cama­cho, a mem­ber of CASA who would qual­i­fy for the Dream Act:

Punt­ing the DACA deci­sion down the road is a fail­ure of lead­er­ship in Con­gress. We know that the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans and mem­bers of Con­gress sup­ports a clean DREAM Act NOW, not in a year. For young undoc­u­ment­ed peo­ple like myself, this is a night­mare. It’s hard to plan for col­lege, for build­ing your fam­i­ly and your career with so much uncer­tain­ty. Our lives are on hold so we need a solu­tion right now.

Sara Mora, an orga­niz­er for Make the Road New Jer­sey and poten­tial DREAM Act beneficiary:

Just yes­ter­day, faith and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers sat in Rep. Lance’s dis­trict office in West­field, New Jer­sey and refused to leave until Lance pub­licly com­mit­ted to a clean Dream Act. Clean means Trump’s cur­rent immi­gra­tion frame­work is a non­starter. Clean means fight­ing back against plans that will gut our fam­i­ly immi­gra­tion sys­tem. While Trump con­tin­ues to move the goal post, we need lead­er­ship to hold the line and vote with Dream­ers and our families.

Lin­da Sar­sour, Nation­al Co-Chair of the Women’s March:

To my undoc­u­ment­ed broth­ers and sis­ters, I want you to know, you are not alone. You tell us where to be, and we will be there. Today, we are here with you to deliv­er a mes­sage to Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats in Con­gress: we, peo­ple of col­or, are not bar­gain­ing chips.

This is not a pok­er game. These are peo­ple’s lives. Peo­ple who deserve to be here. We’re not ask­ing for favors, we ask­ing for what we deserve!

My vote in Novem­ber is for undoc­u­ment­ed peo­ple. For Black peo­ple. For poor peo­ple. For mar­gin­al­ized peo­ple and we will pri­ma­ry every Demo­c­rat that did not have spine to stand against the Trump Administration.

If you’re inter­est­ed in learn­ing more, Buz­zfeed has video of the action and arrests. The com­plete speak­ing pro­gram can be watched on Face­book. And there are still pho­tos on Twit­ter. See this tweet, this one, and this one.