The immigration debate has been largely unproductive over the past several years, but Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) is aiming to change that. Behind the scenes, Sen. Rubio is slowly building a coalition of support for a modified version of the original DREAM Act.
Sen. Rubio’s bill, details of which have begun to leak out, would still address the issue of young, undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children, but cannot attain permanent legal status. However, unlike the original DREAM Act, which would open up a path to full citizenship under some conditions, Sen. Rubio’s proposal would only offer a path to “non-immigrant” visas.
A little more on the essentials: to qualify for the original DREAM Act, immigrants must be less than 30 years old, and have been brought to the U.S. as children (before turning 16). They must pass a criminal background test, attain a certain degree of education (a high school diploma or GED), and have lived in the U.S. for five years. Furthermore, those who qualify must be currently pursuing a college education or military service. Those who met all of those qualifications- so-called ‘DREAMers’- could attain a green card, and eventually qualify for citizenship.
The DREAM Act would certainly only address a small part of our immigration problem, but for millennials, it is an important one. Many students know an undocumented immigrant at their college- NGJ’s Mandeep Chahal has written about her own struggles repeatedly. According to a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center, 61% of young millennials fully support the policy, including 49% of Republican millennials.
The original DREAM Act, though, failed to pass Congress, and Sen. Rubio hopes that his modified version can clear that hurdle. His proposal would be more moderate- it would only grant ‘non-immigrant’ visas to those who meet many of the original qualifications, rather than offer a direct path to citizenship. Some, like Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have claimed this would create a ‘second class’ of Americans. Sen. Rubio, though, is aggressively building a coalition to support his more moderate plan, including progressive Democrats, hard-line anti-immigration groups, and some DREAMers themselves.
