The DREAM Act was defeated on the Senate floor in 2007 after it failed to reach cloture by eight votes. Fast-forward 15 months and we have a President that has called the DREAM Act a top priority and thinks it is something that can be done immediately, a Congress that is more willing to take action on immigration reform, and undocumented youth and allies bustling with energy and enthusiasm.
What is the DREAM Act? The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, is a bipartisan legislation introduced as early as 2001 to grant certain undocumented youth a pathway to citizenship granted that they were brought here before the age of 16, have lived in the United States continuously for 5 years, have no criminal record, graduate from high school and attend college or join the military for two years. No one would gain immediate citizenship from the DREAM Act – it would take six years before anyone could petition to change their conditional residency to American citizenship. It is a modest and straight-forward bill that recognizes the injustice of punishing children for the alleged transgressions of their parents and yet, due to the bankrupt self-defeating agendas of anti-immigrant groups, the dreams of an estimated 1.6 to 2.5 million students who want to better this country remain on hold.
Struggles for civil rights are not won in a matter of days and the undocumented youth fighting for their DREAMs have gone from their young teens to young adults, fighting to stay and contribute to a country that has no problem taking their taxes, but denies them full citizenship rights.
Now is the time to make this change. We cannot afford to lose more of our K-12 investments to deportations, especially when this country needs to cultivate a young workforce to keep social security solvent. It makes little sense to educate alien minors using taxpayer dollars only to shut the doors to higher education, never earn back those investments and instead, breed a permanent underclass of wasted talent and potential. It makes even less sense to turn away youth from serving in the military on their own accord.
We open this blog to suggestions on how to advance this cause and also encourage individual and group efforts in solidarity.
In the coming days, we will be highlighting undocumented student and ally blogs in frequent pro-migrant blog round-ups, including video blogs covering on-the-ground activism.
An action will be up shortly for everyone to petition their representatives and Senators to co-sponsor the DREAM Act.
Student groups and grassroots organizations are also welcome to submit their videos and materials, as well as guest-blog, so that we can build a stronger coalition for the DREAM Act and pass this piece of legislation in 2009.
