Wednesday, July 18, 2007

DREAM Act SUPPORT: CALL TODAY

The senate is considering the defense bill right now. The DREAM Act is an amendment to that bill. THe DREAM Act in its current state allows undocumented students who have been in the US for more than five years, to legalize their status by attending college or joining the military.






Right now the anti-immigrant movement is calling senators to demand that they remove the choice of college. This would leave many students to choose between a life in the shadows and military service. While some students are interested in joining the military, even they do not believe service should be forced upon their peers who are not interested.

Call or email your senators every day this week and tell them that you support the Durbin, Hagel, Lugar Amendment (aka the DREAM Act) and tell them you support college as an option for children who are undocumented.

4 comments:

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Piper said...

The bill to which this was attached was pulled. It's still a good idea to let your senators know how you feel about the DREAM Act!

Coloradans For Immigrant Rights said...

CFIR/AFSC Statement on Military Service and the DREAM Act:

While we have always supported the growing movement of immigrant students in demanding their right to education, the recent insertion of military service into the DREAM Act concerns us. Undocumented students face many challenges, they are routinely tracked for behavior with racist policies, pushed out of schools, or are ill prepared to attend college. Studies have shown that for every immigrant student who will attend a two or four year college, twenty will not. Given the pervasiveness of targeted military recruiting among young people of color and the negative effects on their lives, communities and futures, CFIR/AFSC, as a social justice and peace organization, denounces the poverty draft and its influence. We believe that young people should be able to qualify for the benefits of the DREAM Act by performing Community Service for a more just society, in addition to the enrolling in higher education, and we reject the military service component which seems a de facto military draft for undocumented youth.

Gabriela said...

Yes, the Department of Defense authorization bill was pulled, thus DREAM Act amendment in its latest form dies. It may be re-introduced as an amendment again when the authorization bill comes back to the Senate.

It critical that immigrant students have options for their futures and the future of our nation. However, marketing the DREAM Act as a way to ensure that we have "enough troops for the US mission in Iraq" is terribly disturbing. The DREAM Act needs to include a community service provision so that bill does not serve as a-defacto draft bill for immigrant children.