UCLA Chancellor Gene Block urges passage of Dream Act [Updated]

victor85 · 12-05-2010, 06:40 AM

Quote:

As Congress nears a showdown on legislation to legalize undocumented young people who attend college or join the military, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block on Friday urged passage of the measure, saying the nation needed their skills in an increasingly competitive globalized economy.

"We're in an international marketplace that is extraordinarily competitive," Block said in a White House teleconference featuring Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and other university heads. "We've got to make sure that every single one of our young people have an opportunity to contribute to our competitive advantage."

Locke said immigrant entrepreneurs have accounted for a quarter of all venture-capital-backed companies that have gone public in the last 15 years.

The teleconference was part of escalating advocacy on both sides involving the legislation, known as the Dream Act.

With a comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system dead for now, the Dream Act is seen as the best chance to win legal status for at least some undocumented migrants before Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in January.

Most Republicans oppose the act as unjustified "amnesty" for lawbreakers or say no legalization should be considered until the border is secured.

Democratic leaders say they intend to bring the bill to a vote in the next few days, but Republicans are vowing to block any consideration until George W. Bush-era tax cuts are extended.

To win more Republican support, particularly in agricultural states, California legislators are angling to add to the Dream Act provisions to grant legal status to undocumented farm workers.

Meanwhile, in a long-awaited cost estimate released Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the Dream Act would increase tax revenues by $2.3 billion and increase spending on social services by $912 million.

That would result in a net reduction in the federal deficit by about $1.4 billion over 10 years, the CBO said. The estimate was based on 1.1 million legalized migrants.

However, the analysis found that spending on social services would "significantly" increase after 10 years, when the newly legalized migrants would be eligible for green cards and, after that, citizenship.

The added costs of their health insurance, Medicaid and nutrition assistance would increase projected deficits by more than $5 billion after 2021, the estimate found.

But Steven Camarota of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies in Washington said the larger public expense would fall on state and local governments for educational spending. In a new analysis, he estimated that each newly legalized migrant who attends a public university or college would receive a tuition subsidy of nearly $6,000, for a total annual cost of $6.2 billion.

California educational leaders said, however, that they did not expect a major effect on their budgets and enrollment.

Very routine article; however, pay close attention to the bold part.

The implication is that another version of Dream Act coupled with AbJob could emerge very soon.

To DA User: If another version of Dream Act emerges, I pray to God that the legislators will fix the retroactive part, so you could qualify for DA.

CB124 · 12-05-2010, 12:10 PM

I just don't think it is happening in the Lame Duck. There are just too many other bills to attach the agriculture bill and all of these other things on with an unfunded government...I'm sorry to break your bubble. It will go up for a vote as is.

And a UCLA chancellor from California talking about the Dream Act is hardly news. Might as well find out what P Diddy thinks

MiGSTeR · 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CB124

I just don't think it is happening in the Lame Duck. There are just too many other bills to attach the agriculture bill and all of these other things on with an unfunded government...I'm sorry to break your bubble. It will go up for a vote as is.

And a UCLA chancellor from California talking about the Dream Act is hardly news. Might as well find out what P Diddy thinks

We tend to ignore the positive things but embrace what the opposition says, I'll take any support we can get anytime. We should be thanking them rather than swaying them away by saying they don't matter.

CB124 · 12-05-2010, 12:39 PM

I tend to embrace reality

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UCLA Chancellor Gene Block urges passage of Dream Act [Updated]