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On September 13, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he would attach the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act to the Department of Defense authorization bill expected to come before the Senate as early as next week. The vote will be an important test of whether Congress can transcend partisan politics and work together on crafting solutions to the broken immigration system that both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge is in desperate need of reform. That the proposal will be considered as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill is appropriate, given the Department of Defense's support for DREAM Act as a way to improve military readiness.
First introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act would address the plight of young immigrants who have been raised in the U.S. and managed to succeed despite the challenges of being brought to the U.S. without proper documentation. The proposal would offer a path to legal status to those who have graduated from high-school, have stayed out of trouble and plan to attend college or serve in the U.S. military for at least two years.
Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, many at the top of their classes, but cannot go to college, join the military, work, or otherwise pursue their dreams. They belong to the 1.5 generation - any (first generation) immigrants brought to the United States at a young age who were largely raised in this country and therefore share much in common with second generation Americans. These students are culturally American, growing up here and often having little attachment to their country of birth. They tend to be bicultural and fluent in English. In June, Eric Balderas, an immigrant student attending Harvard was detained by the Immigration Services. Balderas had been brought to the U.S. by his parents illegally when he was four years old. He was his high school’s valedictorian and he won a scholarship to Harvard, where he hopes to become a cancer researcher. Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois who is a cheif sponsor of the DREAM Act, personally stepped in to prevent Balderas' deportation. Immigration advocates have been frustrated with the stall of immigration reform in Washington, since President Obama said he would tackle the issue in his first year. The DREAM Act faces opposition from Republicans who are against offerning amnesty to families who have broke the law. They also criticize it for lacking enforcement provisions against those who fail to meet the requirements, and for being unfair to those who waited to come to the United States legally. To continue reading about this issue, please see the Immigraton Policy Center's Press Release here and the article about Eric Balderas here.
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