Dreamies will try to join the Air Force on Monday

Arianna Salgado has always known she illegally moved to the United States with her family more than a decade ago. But it didn't hit her until she realized she couldn't do many things her friends could, like get a driver's license or take a class trip to France and have no problem getting back into the country.

Despite being undocumented, Salgado, a senior at Proviso Mathematics and Science Academy in Forest Park, is sure she is headed to college, and she is part of a movement informing her her Melrose Park neighborhood and calling U.S. senators as they approach a vote on the Dream Act, short for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. The legislation would grant conditional legal status to people illegally brought into the country as children if they attend college or join the U.S. military.

Senate Democrats surprised immigrant groups last week when lawmakers announced they would attach the pending legislation, first proposed in 2001, to a defense reauthorization bill already headed for a vote. A vote on the legislation, which could happen Tuesday, would clear the way for a floor debate in the Senate about it.
"We look at it as the first step toward comprehensive immigration reform," Salgado, 17, said proudly, flanked by her parents at a festival Sunday at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Melrose Park.

Activists in Chicago and the suburbs, including parishioners at St. Charles Borromeo who support the legislation, launched an urgent campaign this weekend encouraging supporters to flood their senators with calls to support the Dream Act.

On Monday, more than 100 undocumented students and elected officials are expected to rally outside a U.S. Air Force recruitment office at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago as a few students will attempt to enlist. Then they plan to camp overnight at Republican Party headquarters downtown to encourage lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., to vote "yes" for the Dream Act.

Petite with curly brown locks, Salgado stood at the entrance to an annual fest at St. Charles armed with dozens of yellow fliers. The leaflets urge people to call their lawmakers about the Dream Act and to attend a community forum on Monday in the church basement about the proposed legislation.

Salgado was 6 when her family packed up in Morelos, Mexico, and moved to the United States. She plans to attend college to study a social science, but she can't apply for financial aid because she's undocumented.

"I will still go to college, regardless," Salgado said. "It would just be harder to afford it."

She started attending rallies and handing out fliers earlier this year, hoping to drive more people to get behind the Dream Act.

"I am nervous and scared," Salgado said of the proposed legislation going forward after nearly a decade of jockeying among politicians. "It's a lot of emotion. ... This could be it."

Vicente Del Real, 21, of Westchester, said he is a "Dreamer" too. Del Real's family moved from Zacatecas, Mexico, to the United States when he was 15.

The undocumented Triton College student said he understands the risk he's taking by speaking out.

"But we are trying to fight for our rights and our dreams. I don't think there's anything illegal about wanting to get educated," Del Real said.

The Rev. Jorge Bravo, who leads St. Charles Borromeo, said his parishioners are a melting pot of Filipinos, Hispanics, Brazilians and Americans who support immigrant rights.

Deacon Freddy Palacios, who has been with the church for 23 years, said: "We have known the struggles they have had as far as trying to go to school."

Both Bravo and Palacios support the legislation. But not all Catholics agree with the activism at St. Charles Borromeo and other churches that back the Dream Act.

"I think this is a little bit over the line, actually telling them to vote for a certain (piece of) legislation," said Mary Anne Hackett, president of Catholic Citizens of Illinois, a conservative group concerned about what its members view as the erosion of Catholic unity.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,3798840.story

This is a totally brilliant idea!

bless them.

My thoughts will be with them tomorrow. Best of luck.

100 of them? That's impressive. Recruiters will be confused at first but then they'll realize whats going on and be forced to turn away all 100 students, and their commission.

a recruiters wet dream, sad but if it gets them to pass the dream , im down

any update on this?