http://lezgetreal.com/2012/06/senato...s-as-they-are/


Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has been the Senate’s strongest proponent of the Dream Act, but while he is happy to see Republicans stepping forth to propose similar legislation, he is not happy with the form that is taking. Durbin spoke to the Huffington Post about GOP Representative David Rivera’s Stars Bill voicing his disappointment in the fact that it restricts eligibility to just those under the age of 19.

Durbin addressed his support of the bill saying that he will not vote for it as it is, but you know, the fact that they’re talking about passing anything is at least an opening to a dialogue.” He feels that the age cap is “unfair and unreasonable.” According to the Huffington Post:

Eligibility for these types of bills has been a consideration for Durbin since 2001, when he first introduced the Dream Act, which would allow some undocumented young people to gain legal status if they entered the U.S. as children. At the time, it had bipartisan support — Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was also an original sponsor — but no iteration has passed both chambers.
Some of the original “Dreamers,” as proponents of the law call would-be Dream Act beneficiaries, are now in their early-30s and have advocated for the bill for years. (The 2001 bill would have required undocumented immigrants to apply for status before they turned 21.) Durbin attempted to address the age issue by extending the age of eligibility to 29 years old in the 2010 version of the Dream Act, which would allow many of those early Dreamers to benefit.
Durbin’s bill could not pass the Senate in 2010 even though it did pass the House, and it is unclear if the Senate GOP would be willing to pass any bill whatsoever. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, is trying to gain support for his version of this kind of act. He said of Rivera’s bill “I respect what he’s trying to do. But I think people are going to prefer our approach.”

Rubio’s version of the bill does not provide a faster path to citizenship for those eligible. Rubio’s version would force those eligible to follow the normal and often difficult naturalization process that could leave them in limbo for years. Rubio stated “The path ours provides is the same that exists for anybody else. I think that allays a lot of the concerns that people have about whether this is amnesty or whether this is creating an incentive for future violation of the law.”



No big shock here. I have not posted anything in a while and I need some love.