DREAM Act Portal Forum - Lugar's bill aids immigrant children

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WASHINGTON – There’s always something good that emerges from a really bad situation.

In the case of the lousy economy, one positive outcome would be enactment of some sensible immigration legislation.

Specifically, a bill to give the kids of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Sen. Richard Lugar has been a longtime and consistent supporter of such an approach, but intense – and often ugly – emotions have blocked it.

But as the U.S. economy contracts, there are fewer jobs and less of a lure for people to cross the border illegally. With fewer undocumented immigrants, the boil-level fury in some quarters is likely to cool a bit.

If anti-immigration sentiments are less stoked, it’s possible the legislative climate on Capitol Hill would be more receptive to this common-sense approach to a situation that is not of these youngsters’ making.

And that would be good for everyone.

Lugar supports this approach for much the same reason that he worked against congressional Republicans’ attempt a few years ago to turn the school lunch program into a block grant for the states. (The upshot of that would have been to reduce the school lunch program.)

His rationale: Children can’t control what their parents do, where they move, how much money mom and dad make, whether they follow immigration laws. And because they don’t have a controlling vote in these adult decisions, Lugar believes, kids shouldn’t be punished for their parents’ actions or circumstances.

Here’s what happens: A child is brought to the U.S. by parents who cross the border without proper immigration papers. The baby grows, attends school, gets good grades and graduates from high school.

Now what?

The kid is not a U.S. citizen. But he or she is certainly not a “citizen” of the ancestral county. It is absurd and cruel to say the answer is to ship this young adult back to wherever the parents are from.

Refusing to allow some way for these young people to legitimize their U.S. citizenship condemns them to dead-end jobs. It blocks them from attending affordable colleges because non-citizens are prohibited from getting federal student financial aid, and states are barred from offering in-state tuition rates.

How does the U.S. possibly benefit from creating a pool of people who can do very little to contribute to the society?

Lugar and some other senators (including then-Sen. Barack Obama), proposed that citizenship could be granted to these children after they graduate from high school and complete two years of military service or college.

There’s nothing flashy and radical about this idea. It’s a common-sense approach to a problem that the kids had no hand in creating.

Opponents, however, say this would reward lawbreakers and encourage others to enter the U.S. illegally.

Six-year-olds as lawbreakers? Absurd. The other point has some legitimacy if you think more people would skirt immigration rules to live a shadowy life for a decade or more so that their children can get in-state tuition.

But even if that is the case, the U.S. national interests are served by pulling down barriers that block talented children from getting a college education.

When emotions about immigration are inflamed, even a modest foray into a logical immigration policy is demonized.

Showing some compassion for these children would reflect well on America. Let’s hope that Lugar and the other sponsors of this legislation – called the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act) – find 2009 more hospitable

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/p...0501/812070370