To our loss, Dream Act deferred for two more years

Last December, the Senate reached the two-thirds majority needed to pass the Dream Act, which would have given legal residency to many young people who came to this country illegally as children. Because the November elections gave new power to the Republicans, conservatives now hold many key committee seats, making it unlikely that the act will pass until new senators are elected two years from now.

Let's cheer on Washington: despite our failing education system and an even worse economy, Congress still does its best to ban degree-pursuing youth from careers as American citizens that may help boost our economy and strengthen our communities.

The Dream Act would reward illegal immigrants who came here as children and have finished at least two years of college or military service with citizenship, provided they pass a criminal background check first. It would only affect individuals who lived here for years, stayed out of trouble and worked hard to get through college - perhaps harder than many of their American-born peers.

The Dream Act's would-be beneficiaries are the kind of people we want to stay and work in the U.S. Companies have shut down factory upon factory for years and our economy is increasingly based on jobs that require training - jobs for the educated. We're kicking the wrong people out of this country.

We should also think twice about voting down a bill that could increase the size of the military. Though it would be detestable to pressure illegal immigrants into military service as the only route to citizenship, this clause of the bill is reasonable in conjunction with the education requirement. Illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. too late to join our educational system or who are not academically inclined towards college would still have a path to legal residency. The military, long short of its recruiting quotas, would get a boost. Historically, the military has embraced immigrant soldiers - the Civil War included many Irish and German regiments - and always adapted to accommodate the troops available, instead of deporting those who might be willing to serve.

In recent years, local authorities increased immigration enforcement more and more; in 2010 alone, 393,000 illegal immigrants were deported. Though I disagree with it, I can understand the motivation behind deporting immigrants who have been here for a few weeks or months, who speak little English and plan to eventually return home anyway. But those who would be affected by the Dream Act are different. The best argument the act's critics can come up with is that it would allow illegal immigrants to displace American students from public colleges. This rationale misidentifies the hurdle that U.S. students face in applying to college, such as sky-high tuition rates and the insufficient preparation provided by underperforming high schools.

Denying citizenship to illegal immigrant students does not help the U.S.; in fact, it only hurts us. It seems unlikely that Congress will be able to act on such common sense for at least another two years.

http://media.www.smithsophian.com/me...-3977996.shtml

Dream Act will go nowhere unless a new strategy is launched.

Some good points here but I would like to point out the military isn't short of recruiting goals, and hasn't been for a while. Factual errancies in publications just give people more ammo to fight against immigration reform.

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news...20110207-am-sd

well argued in this article, we can only hope that common sense may start to prevail amid that dark cloud of racism and hate that has landscaped all of politics these last couple of years, most of their arguments are starting to lose ground, its too bad that by now theyve gotten what they wanted, to criminalize individuals and turn the news on to innocent migrants slandered as criminals, than the big breaks going on at wall street

no way, military ALWAYS needs all the help it can get, just look at all the types of ways they try luring kids in, JROTC's $100 million contracts to advertise in nascar, mullions of dollars a year awarded in GI Bills, you think they would of been allowing gays into the military if they didnt need to? army brass is about as old school as you can get, yet now theyre even thinking about having women join in to combat operations, also something never before

This is true. I think this time, if we were to gain more support, we need to focus on how DA will BENEFIT the US CITIZENS/legal residents...not us. If we focus on the economic gain (http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/jus...m-act#economic) with legalizing undocumented students, this then, in theory, will create jobs that will be in tune with what they want. Citizens will likely to support it.

Let's face it, this ISN'T JUST ABOUT THE IMMIGRANTS....the true sense of DA (or CIR for the matter) is beyond that. We can parade our stories all we want, but that is not good enough or a reform would've passed years ago. We will always be illegals no matter what we went thru, and keeping the focus on our gain just wouldn't seem right for most that live here legally. Bottomline we have to switch the focus on their gain if we want their support.