In 2010, the Dream Act passed the House and went to the Senate. Had it passed the Senate, President Obama would have signed it, there would have been no need for DACA, and today would not have happened.
Why did it lose in the Senate? 5 Democrats supported the Republican filibuster.
The first thing to know is that there are already a number of bills circulating around Congress that could in theory be passed. The highest profile of these is the Dream Act of 2017, an updated version of the original bill that passed the House in 2010 but then fell victim to a filibuster in the Senate (saddest of all, that filibuster had the support of five Democrats — Kay Hagan, Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson, Jon Tester and Max Baucus — and had they voted for the bill, it would have passed).
WaPo; the Plum Line
It lost by 5 votes because of the filibuster. See Question: On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Concur in the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment No. 3 to H.R. 5281 )
5 Democrats defeated the Dream Act.
The vote to end debate on the Dream Act and move to a final vote received only 55 votes, short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. Forty-one senators voted no.
Three Republicans - Indiana's Dick Lugar, Utah's Bob Bennett and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski - were among the yes votes. Five Democrats voted no: Max Baucus and John Tester of Montana, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. The bill had already passed the House and is supported by President Obama.
CBS News: DREAM Act Dies in the Senate (The 41 nos included Reid’s switch for senate procedural reasons once he saw the filibuster would continue.)
The only one left in the Senate is Jon Tester. Pryor and Hagen were defeated. I think Baucus and Nelson retired.
It might have been so different if those 5 had the common decency President Obama spoke about today.