Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Dream Act
Following State of the Union, President Obama Needs to Follow Through on Immigration Reforms
01 week ago
The President’s State of the Union address this week re-iterated some of his key themes on immigration—support for comprehensive reform, dismay that DREAM Act students and foreign students educated in this country have no way to legalize their status, and a belief that he’s done enough to the secure the border. More importantly, he framed these themes in context to America’s economic recovery, innovation and growth. However, while any mention of immigration in the State of the Union is welcome, it’s what the President didn’t say that may have more of an impact on how his administration is remembered this year on immigration—and how his vision is measured by voters in the coming election.
In the State of the Union address, President Obama repeatedly signaled to Congress that he would sign sensible bills to reform our immigration system, big or small. But he quickly noted that partisan politics would make it all but impossible to pass comprehensive reform:
The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.
There are plenty of bills that fit this description, from the DREAM Act to proposals offering green cards to foreign graduates in science and engineering to support for immigrant entrepreneurs, but they are just as likely to flounder in the sea of partisan politics as something grander and more comprehensive.
And while the president suggested that the ball was in Congress’s court, he didn’t mention that his Administration has moved forward on reforms that don’t require Congressional action. The Administration has become more aggressive in the last in year in fixing parts of our backward immigration system, such as overhauling immigration detention, a review of the Secure Communities program, a re-invigoration of the use of prosecutorial discretion, and attempts to promote streamlined adjudications and family unity. The latter, announced just weeks ago, has generated real excitement among immigrant communities.
Similarly, changes to the way government officials decide what cases should be prosecuted in immigration court—and what cases should be dropped—have given hope to millions of immigrants that they may be able to stay with their families, at least for a while longer. But there remains considerable uncertainty about how DHS will routinely exercise discretion, especially amidst reports that DREAM Act students and others who clearly fit the government’s low priority status are still being deported.
In the areas of detention reform and Secure Communities, however, the early enthusiasm about change has been replaced by wariness on the part of advocates who want to believe promised reforms will be made. They have been repeatedly disappointed by delays in the detention realm and a continued commitment to keep Secure Communities alive, a program that many believe undermines community safety and policing. A special task force voted out a series of necessary reforms and gave their report to Secretary Napolitano last September, but DHS has yet to announce how it will implement these recommendations.
Although these ongoing administrative reforms don’t fit tidily into the overarching vision of immigration policy the President laid out in the State of the Union, following through on them would have a lasting effect on both immigration enforcement and the consideration of benefits for those stuck in our broken immigration system. And the President shouldn’t abandon his larger vision. He has made significant strides in helping to reshape how people who don’t much care about immigration think about it and that will be critical when the time comes for comprehensive reform. But for those most directly affected by our immigration crisis, it is the most immediate details that matter most.
Photo by WhiteHouse.gov.
Advocates Call Romney’s Relationship with Anti-Immigrant Hawk “Political Suicide”
02 weeks ago
As if Mitt Romney’s repeated promise to veto the DREAM Act wasn’t alienating enough, advocates warn that Romney’s continued relationship with famed anti-immigrant hawk Kris Kobach is killing future support from Latino voters, especially in key states like New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Kobach, co-author of Arizona and Alabama’s extreme immigration enforcement laws, appeared in South Carolina Monday night to spin for the Romney campaign following the GOP debate.
Following Kobach’s endorsement of Gov. Mitt Romney last week, the Romney campaign issued a statement accepting Kobach’s endorsement and supporting his leadership on extreme immigration enforcement last in Arizona and South Carolina. Now, however, with Kobach actually appearing on Romney’s campaign trail, advocates say Kobach will damage Romney’s image among Latino voters.
Dee Dee Garcia Blase of the grassroots Republican Latino group Somos Republicans said “Romney committed political suicide” when he welcomed Kobach’s endorsement. Outspoken immigration advocate Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) called Kobach’s affiliation with the Romney campaign “appalling” and characterized Kobach as the “Dark Lord of the anti-immigration movement” on a teleconference. And earlier this month, Hispanic Leadership Fund’s Mario Lopez said Romney’s approach to immigration was hurting him as a candidate and the Republican party in general.
As previously reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kris Kobach has built a long and varied career out of attacking immigrants—first in the Bush Administration targeting legal immigrants from Muslim and Arab countries and later as the architect of city ordinances and state laws targeting unauthorized, mostly Latino immigrants.
But the addition of Kobach to Romney’s campaign is just the latest in Romney’s hard line on immigration. Romney again indicated yesterday that he would veto the DREAM Act should it come up in Congress, arguing that “aiding those eligible under the DREAM Act”—a bill that puts undocumented students who were brought here by their parents on a path towards citizenship—“would only encourage more people to enter the country without documentation.”
Appearing tough on immigration may not hurt Romney during the GOP primary, but come general election time, many wonder how Romney plans to win the Latino vote. Matt Barreto of the University of Washington said that Romney will not win the presidency without at least 40% of the Latino vote, a vote Congressman Luis Gutierrez believes Romney will not receive given his current approach to immigration.
“There is no route to the White House that does not go through a Latino neighborhood. Any winner in either party needs a significant proportion of Latino voters. When you say you want millions of us to leave the country … we will vote against you.”
When it comes to immigration, American voters have established that they want solutions not smears. Politicians, however, continue to read from a different playbook written by a narrow group of voters and commentators.
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Michigan Is a Window to America
02 months ago
Michigan is a microcosm of the nation’s current economic crisis: a shrinking job base and an education system that is failing its youth. As the presidential candidates wind through Michigan this campaign season, like they did last week for a national debate on the economy, we hope they focus on ways to ensure that more students graduate with high school diplomas. We need every eligible high school graduate to attend college and help build the American economic engine with highly skilled labor and entrepreneurial know-how.
One step they could take is to support the bipartisan DREAM Act, which fulfills the promise of the "American Dream" and lives up to our Constitutional ideals by opening up the path to higher education and military service, regardless of immigration status, for every child.
Our economic and national security depends on legislation grounded in the Constitution and the principles of equality and opportunity. The DREAM Act will let new generations of Americans enter our workforce and serve our country. It will channel young immigrants into the nation’s universities so they can contribute to our manufacturing base, make sure America is competitive in the new global economy and build a strong military. In fact, the DREAM Act is among the Defense Department’s top strategic goals in order to maintain mission-ready, all-volunteer armed forces.
Passage of the DREAM Act will help take Michigan and the nation into the future, which is what Election 2012 is supposed to be all about. Let’s hope the candidates help take us there.
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Governor Jerry Brown Signs Immigration Bills that Help, Not Hurt, California’s Economy
03 months ago
Take note, Alabama. Over the weekend, Governor Jerry Brown signed two immigration bills that seek to boost California’s struggling economy, rather than saddle it and small businesses with costly enforcement programs. Governor Brown signed the “Employment Acceleration Act of 2011” (AB 1236), a bill that prohibits the state from requiring employers to use E-Verify, as well as the other half of California’s DREAM Act (AB 131), a bill which makes college more affordable for undocumented students and “benefits us all,” as Gov. Brown says, “by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us.”
The first bill, AB 1236, prohibits the state, cities or counties from requiring employers to use E-Verify, an electronic employment verification system that uses employees’ social security numbers to determine work eligibility. Exceptions are made, however, for city or county workers, or if E-verify is a requirement for particular employers under federal or as a condition for employers receiving federal funds.
While supporters of mandatory E-Verify claim the system will magically open up millions of jobs to American workers, reports find that the program would actually cost California’s small businesses (which make up 99% of employers in the state) more than $312 million per year and potentially put 90,000 U.S. citizen and legal state workers out of a job. Nationally, mandatory E-Verify would cost small businesses $2.6 billion a year, according to Bloomberg News Service, and cost federal contractors $10 billion to implement. According to Assemblyman Paul Fong, AB 1236’s sponsor:
“This bill protects our California workers and businesses. The mandated use of E-Verify would impose a major financial burden on businesses, especially small businesses. In addition, businesses will suffer from delayed hiring and the cost of mistaken identities. In this tough economy, we need to help businesses and grow and provide jobs, not set up barriers that cost jobs.”
The second bill, AB 131, builds on the first half of the California DREAM Act (AB 130) which allows undocumented students to enroll in California’s public colleges and universities to receive privately-funded university scholarships from non-state funds. AB 131 allows undocumented students to apply for and receive state-based funding, such as, Cal Grants at universities (only after such grants are awarded to eligible documented students), fee waivers, and some types of financial aid administered at the university or college level (such as UC Grants).
In a statement, Gov. Brown said that “the Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us.” According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the state will not have enough college graduates to keep up with economic demand by 2025. AB 131, however, could play a critical role in boosting the number of college grads, says the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
With an increasing unemployment rate of more than 12%, California legislators concluded that it “must pursue all avenues in facilitating and incubating job development and economic growth.” Hopefully other states will follow California’s lead by passing bills that grow local economies, rather than hurt local businesses with costly enforcement bills that end up costing American workers their jobs.
Photo by rtilden.
GOP Candidates Distort Truth on In-State Tuition for Unauthorized Students
04 months ago
Texas Governor Rick Perry, a candidate in the Republican presidential primaries, has been taking a lot of conservative heat lately over his support for the “Texas DREAM Act.” That bill, which Perry signed into law in 2001, allows young unauthorized Texans who came to this country as children to qualify for in-state tuition in state colleges and universities in the same way as their lawfully present peers. Perry says that supporting the bill was an act of mercy towards unauthorized youth who had no say in the decision of their parents to come to the United States without permission. He also says that it is in the best interest of the state to educate unauthorized children rather than consigning them to the margins of society.
Perry’s opponents disagree. They mischaracterize in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants, claiming that it comes at the expense of native-born students. Fellow presidential contender Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has claimed that the Texas bill gave every unauthorized student who benefitted from it an unfair in-state tuition “discount” of nearly $100,000 over the course of four years spent at the University of Texas.
Mr. Romney could use a little schooling on the issue of in-state tuition laws. Specifically, there are four important points to remember:
- Unauthorized immigrants who want to go to an in-state college are required to pay the out-of-state or international-student tuition rates, which can be considerably higher than the in-state rate. Mitt Romney mischaracterizes an in-state tuition law as an unfair advantage given to unauthorized students who have actually lived in the state for years and acquired their education there. In reality, the law only gives those who qualify the option of paying in-state tuition rates to attend in-state colleges or universities (and, in some cases, only community colleges).
- The number of students who are eligible for and choose to utilize the tuition benefit open to them is very low. In the case of Texas, only 9,062 students actually benefited from the Texas DREAM Act in fall 2007. This amounted to eight-tenths of one percent of all students in the state’s public colleges and universities.
- Bills granting in-state tuition to qualified unauthorized students are not a fiscal burden. They draw tuition-paying students into the educational system who otherwise would not be there. According to fiscal notes from the state legislatures of Colorado and California, for instance, in-state tuition bills are a fiscal wash. That is, the amount of new revenue generated from having more students enrolled in colleges and universities, and paying in-state tuition, offsets the loss of revenue from having fewer students paying higher, non-resident tuition rates.
- In-state tuition for unauthorized youth encourages more students to finish high school and get a higher education. In a report released earlier this year, the Latino Policy Institute at Roger Williams University found that “in-state tuition is correlated with a 14% decrease in high school dropouts among non-citizen Latinos.” Moreover, “in-state tuition results in a 31% increase in non-citizen enrollment in institutes of higher education.” And Texas could use a few more college graduates. A report from the Lumina Foundation for Education found that “33 percent of the state’s 12.6 million working-age adults (25-64 years old) hold at least a two-year degree, according to 2008 Census data.” That is significantly lower than the national average of 37.9 percent.
In-state tuition bills like the Texas DREAM Act are not a fiscal burden on the state treasury, do not harm native-born students, and do not provide an unfair advantage to the small number of unauthorized students who qualify.
It is not only Rick Perry who recognizes the wisdom of educating unauthorized students rather than punishing them. In-state tuition laws have been implemented in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington. The experience of these states is that in-state tuition laws have not drained state budgets and have not crowded out native-born students who want to attend college.
Providing in-state tuition is the government’s recognition that kids who have already been educated in the state should be able to complete that education. The government’s motivation is simple: better-educated youth have the potential to become more productive contributors to the state’s economy. Politicians who mischaracterize in-state tuition as giving an unfair advantage to unauthorized students either misunderstand the facts or don’t care about facts in the first place.
Photo by IowaPolitics.com.
California Passes Other Half of DREAM Act Package
05 months ago
While many applauded Governor Jerry Brown’s recent efforts to make college more affordable for all of California’s students, others insisted the state didn’t go far enough. Back in July, Gov. Brown signed AB 130—a bill that allows undocumented students enrolled in California’s public colleges and universities to receive privately-funded university scholarships from non-state funds. At the time, however, its companion bill, AB 131—which would allow undocumented students to apply for state-sponsored financial aid—was stuck in California’s Senate Appropriations Committee. Last week, despite opposition from immigration restrictionists, both California’s State Assembly and Senate approved AB 131 which is now on its way to Gov. Brown’s desk. Many predict Gov. Brown will sign the measure based on promises he made during his campaign.
As previously reported, AB 131 builds on AB 130 by allowing undocumented students to apply for and receive Board of Governors Fee Waivers at community colleges, Cal Grants at universities (only after such grants are awarded to eligible documented students), and some types of financial aid administered at the university or college level (such as UC Grants). It would also expand eligibility for California in-state tuition to those who graduate from California adult schools and vocational schools, as long as the student also attended a California high school for at least one year.
Immigration restrictionist, as expected, were quick to call AB 131 “too expensive” for the state, despite findings from the California Assembly Committee on Appropriations that AB 131 would “not increase overall spending” on institutional aid in the state. In fact, a recent study by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment finds that AB 131 could play a critical role in boosting the overall number of college grads necessary to keep California’s economy strong. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates by 2025, the state will not have enough college graduates to keep up with economic demand.
Although Congress failed to pass a national DREAM Act bill last December, it’s clear that states want immigration reforms that benefit their economies in the long run. What better way to invest in state economies than granting undocumented students access to greater educational opportunities and better jobs, which in turn means more taxable income for the state? Nationally, there are 1.9 million undocumented children who could benefit from the DREAM Act.
Pending Gov. Brown’s signature, California will join Texas and New Mexico in states that offer financial aid to undocumented students. Currently, 12 states (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexcio, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington) offer in-state tuition to undocumented students.
Passing legislation that makes higher education more affordable for California’s students is clearly a great step forward, but California is only one state. Until Congress passes legislation that makes higher education affordable to all students across the country, the United States will continue to miss out on future entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, and scientist and the vital tax revenues they generate.
Photo by SEIU International.
ACLU Lens: DHS Shift on Deportation Policy a First Step toward Reform, but Leaves Many Questions Unanswered
05 months ago
The Obama administration says it will review pending deportation cases against 300,000 individuals to determine whether those cases meet the administration’s enforcement priorities.
A government working group will review each case and use prosecutorial discretion in deciding which case to pursue. The administration will focus on deporting “high-priority” individuals, and will close cases against people who pose no security threat, who have family ties in the U.S., and long-time residents who have contributed to their community, among others.
As ACLU legislative counsel Joanne Lin noted here Thursday, the Obama administration deports nearly 400,000 persons annually. Those caught in this unforgiving net have included long-time community members, crime victims and domestic violence survivors, veterans who served with valor and students who came to the U.S. with their parents as young children and now want to go to college and become productive citizens in the only country they have known.
The announcement Thursday recognized the pressing need to reevaluate this unfair and wasteful enforcement-only strategy. However, while it appears to be a positive step, the administration has offered no details about how it will be implemented.
“Prosecutorial discretion is nothing new. The question is how the administration plans to make it work,” said Kate Desormeau, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Just as troubling, the administration frames its policy as a means of facilitating the deportation of so-called “criminal aliens.” However, the reality is that many individuals with criminal histories have the same factors that do not make their deportation a priority.”
Desormeau cautions the announcement left many questions unanswered. Among them:
- What is the working group’s timeline for reviewing all 300,000 cases? How will it determine which cases to review first?
- Will there be any procedure by which an individual can seek review of her case?
- Will individuals be notified when their cases are being reviewed? Will they be able to submit evidence regarding their community ties and other factors?
- Will individuals be notified of negative decisions, and will there be an opportunity to appeal? Will they have a chance to seek a new determination if their circumstances change?
- Will the administration issue guidancetake steps to ensure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement prosecutors and officers on the ground actually follow the agency’s enforcement priorities?
“Until the government shows it has a fair, transparent, workable plan for making good on its promise,” Desormeau said, “this does nothing to relieve the tremendous suffering and fear this administration’s draconian enforcement practices have engendered.”
In the News:
- New York Times: Fewer Youths to be Deported Under New Policy
- Associated Press: U.S. Shift on Deportation Priority Eases Risk for Those Not Convicted of Crimes
Get more information. Click here for our Immigrants’ Rights hub.
What’s the Value of Keeping Undocumented Youth in the Shadows?
06 months ago
The real life psychological ramifications of young immigrants struggling with their unauthorized status are often glossed over in the larger immigration debate. In a recent journal article, Learning to Be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood, University of Chicago professor Roberto G. Gonzales uses 150 interviews with young Latino adults to examine how unauthorized youth deal with their legal status as they come of age. Gonzales finds that as unauthorized immigrant children transition into adulthood, many “learn to be illegal,” figuring out how to exist in a society that was once welcoming, but now prohibits their participation.
Under U.S. law, all children have the legal right to a K-12 education, regardless of their immigration status. After graduation, however, unauthorized youth quickly learn that they cannot legally work, vote, receive financial aid for college or drive in most states. In addition, they have the added fear of deportation. Throughout his research, Gonzales found that unauthorized youth “uniformly noted a jolting shift at around age 16, when they attempted to move through rites of passage associated with their age…as respondents tried to take these steps into adult life, they were blocked by their lack of a Social Security number.” One student noted:
I never actually felt like I wasn’t born here. Because when I came I was like 10 and a half. I went to school. I learned the language. I first felt like I was really out of place when I tried to get a job. I didn’t have a Social Security number. Well, I didn’t even know what it meant. You know Social Security, legal, illegal. I didn’t even know what that was.
Gonzales found that nearly 60 percent of the unauthorized youth interviewed discovered they were unauthorized when applying for college. Most of those who did not attend college discovered their immigration status when attempting to work. Sadly, the end result for both groups was universal disappointment—their chances of finding a good job or attending an esteemed university severely diminished by their immigration status as were their chances of contributing to society.
These youth, however, have not given up on pursuing their educational aspirations. Many are working on the passage of federal legislation known as the DREAM Act, legislation which would solve many of the issues facing these youngsters. The DREAM act would allow unauthorized youth to eventually gain citizenship by going to college or joining the military after high school. While passage of the DREAM Act is currently an unlikely political reality, the Obama Administration has the ability defer the deportations of certain unauthorized youth who would likely have qualified for the DREAM Act.
So what can we do about America’s unauthorized youth? While Congress remains gridlocked on legislation that would enable unauthorized youth to fully participate in society, Gonazles asks the larger question—what is lost when we keep unauthorized youth—many of whom will remain in the U.S., regardless of their status—in the shadows?
Whether they become a disenfranchised underclass or contributing members to our society, their fate rests largely in the hands of the state.
We must ask ourselves if it is good for the health and wealth of this country to keep such a large number of U.S.-raised young adults in the shadows. We must ask what is lost when they learn to be illegal.
Sadly, the answer to that question is “too much.” While Congress continues to play politics with reform efforts, America loses out on the raw potential these unauthorized youth bring to the table.
Photo by j valas images.
Governor Brown Signs Only Half of California DREAM Act
06 months ago
BY CAITLIN PATLER, DOCTORAL STUDENT AT UCLA’S DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
This week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill (AB) 130. This new law allows undocumented students enrolled in California’s public colleges and universities to receive privately-funded university scholarships from non-state funds.. While AB 130 is a significant step for the Golden State, it is only one of two bills known collectively as the California DREAM Act. Without its companion bill, AB 131, the legislation does little to address the systemic inequality facing undocumented students in California.
Currently, undocumented students are ineligible for state-sponsored financial aid. AB 131 builds on AB 130 by allowing undocumented students to apply for and receive Board of Governors Fee Waivers at community colleges, Cal Grants at universities (only after such grants are awarded to eligible documented students), and some types of financial aid administered at the university or college level (such as UC Grants). It would also expand eligibility for California in-state tuition to those who graduate from California adult schools and vocational schools, as long as the student also attended a California high school for at least one year.
Unfortunately, AB 131 has been stuck in the California Senate Appropriations Committee since early July. While opponents argue that AB 131 would negatively impact California’s economy, a recent study by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (and co-written by this author) shows that passing AB 131 is a critical step to improving California’s economy over time by reducing barriers to higher education for some of the state’s lowest income residents:
“The California DREAM Act [both AB 130 and 131] would make higher education significantly more affordable for undocumented students in California, likely increasing their post-secondary enrollment.
The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that by 2025, California will have 1 million fewer college grads than are demanded by its economy. Therefore, providing access to affordable education for all our state’s students will become even more critical over the coming decades. And importantly, according to the California Assembly Committee on Appropriations, AB 131 would not increase overall spending on institutional aid in the state of California. The Golden State simply cannot afford not to educate its immigrant students.”
The UCLA report also points out that the average annual income for an undocumented family in California in 2003 was only $29,700 (compared to $54,600 for U.S.- born families): “this low socioeconomic status, combined with the ever-increasing cost of college attendance, keeps higher education elusive for many undocumented students, even if they qualify for in-state tuition.” The California DREAM Act has the potential to help make higher education much more accessible for undocumented children, estimated to number more than 430,000 in California alone.
Efforts are under way to ensure that AB 131 becomes law this year. Thousands of immigrant students across California are fighting hard for their well-earned piece of the pie. While simultaneously juggling full-time jobs and course loads, they have also been long-term advocates for equal access to higher education as well as for legalization programs such as those included in recent versions of the federal DREAM Act. Organizations like the California Dream Network and the California Dream Team Alliance have called upon the California Senate to follow the lead of the State Assembly and move AB 131 out of Appropriations.
Passing the entire California DREAM Act is simply what’s right for our state’s economy and for the hard-working immigrant students who call California home.
Photo by Randy Bayne.
Senate Hearing on DREAM Act Emphasizes Need for Relief
07 months ago
Today, the U.S. Senate held its first ever hearing on the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Witnesses such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Dr. Clifford Stanley, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, testified to an overflowing Senate hearing room. The hearing renewed hope that despite a failure on the part of the Senate to pass the DREAM Act last year, Congress may yet be willing to help these deserving young adults fulfill their potential and contribute to the U.S.
Only the most cynical politician could claim that the DREAM Act is being used as a political tool after hearing the testimony of Ola Kaso, an unauthorized immigrant from Albania. Ola was brought to the U.S. at a young age by her mother, who was trying to find a better life for her and her family. Ola struggled to integrate into U.S. society at first, but by the end of high school, she had a 4.4 GPA and was a varsity athlete in both tennis and cross country. She became treasurer of both the Senior Class Student Council as well as her school’s chapter of the National Honor Society. She received numerous scholarship offers and was accepted by several universities including the University of Michigan. Yet, despite all of her achievements, Ola was ordered to be deported to Albania (despite not being fluent in Albanian) the March before her high school graduation. Luckily, Ola’s community rallied around her and was able to get DHS to grant her deferred action for one year while she continued her education. However, many DREAM Act students are not so lucky.
The DREAM Act not only accomplishes humanitarian goals like keeping deserving and innocent young students from being punished, but also allows bright young adults to contribute to the U.S. economy. A 2010 study by the UCLA North American Integration and Development Center estimated that the total earnings of DREAM Act beneficiaries over the course of their working lives would be between $1.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion. More earnings over the course of their working lives means another way that the U.S. can seek to reduce its deficits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the House version of the DREAM Act (H.R. 6497), as introduced on December 7, 2010, “would reduce deficits by about $2.2 billion over the 2011-2020 period.”
After being pressed by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), DHS Secretary Napolitano made clear that in the absence of the DREAM Act, there would be no categorical “amnesty” for DREAM Act eligible students. But on June 17, the Obama administration took a small step that may benefit some DREAM Act students. In a memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Director John Morton outlined 19 factors (ranging from age and when someone came to the country to community ties) that ICE officials should weigh when deciding whether to prosecute an immigration case. While there is no categorical pronouncement that all DREAM act students shall receive deferred action, the Obama Administration is at least signaling that these types of cases merit an individualized assessment.
Small steps like this memo and the continued push on the part of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) for the DREAM Act give hope that Congress will soon realize the obvious fiscal and humanitarian benefits of keeping these bright young adults in the United States.
Photo by Antonio Villaraigosa