The Dream Act

Some background:

This Tuesday, a marvelous piece of humanitarian relief for children will be considered by the United States Senate. This relief is not intended for the children of the Sudan, nor for the children of the flooded plains of Pakistan nor those children living on the streets of Port au Prince in Haiti. Ojalá que fuera así, but perhaps in another moment.

This particular legislative action, however, is no small thing. It is an offer of relief for over a million children, young people who live in our own communities here in the United States. Many of them attend our neighborhood schools and local colleges, and worship alongside us on Sundays.

The wrong that this act addresses and seeks to fix is the nightmarish situation of children who, over the past two decades, were brought to the US by their parents. The parents over stayed the time granted them by their visas or perhaps entered the country without being documented properly. The children--who had no say in the decision of their parents to immigrate--now live in the United States illegally.

One child is "legal" the other child is "illegal."

I use the term "illegally" intentionally, for although there is no moral or ethical reason for blaming the children for their immigration status, the loudmouths and knuckleheads who populate our nation's airwaves are busy demonizing them. In these peoples' minds, these children are somehow "criminals" who "should not be awarded for their crimes." As if there was malevolence in these children's hearts. As if they were even capable of such "illegality" at the time that a mom or a dad packed them up and took them to the United States.

The children, especially as they become young men and women, however, know what it is to live as if one were "illegal." To worry, constantly, that they might be picked up by the Border Patrol and sent to a country about which they have only studied. To know that however hard you might work at your studies, that it might all be in vain. To live with the crushing anxiety of being "neither here nor there." And to have to keep that a secret.

For a decade now, national congressional leaders have proposed to right this wrong, to extend to these young people a hope and a homeland. The appropriately named "Dream Act" was sponsored by Senator McCain and has had the support of a plethora of both Democrats and Republicans. It has failed in the past because it was made a part of the larger immigration reform efforts. This time around, however, the Dream Act is being attached to the Defense Department's budget.

I ask you to join my prayer that this time the Senate gets it right and votes to add the Dream Act to our nation's legacy, thus creating a pathway to legal residence for those young people who are our modern men and women "without a country."

Four sets of dreams; two of them to be deferred, unless the Dream Act is passed.

There are some conditions to the bill, namely, that the young people be of good character and either enroll in college or enlist in the military (thus the Defense Department's interest).

On Tuesday, the Senate is taking a vote on whether to add the Dream Act to this bill, which would create a pathway to legal residence for those children who were brought to the USA by their parents. Should that happen, in my community alone, 10,000 children and their families will break out dancing and singing. With that vote, these young people will be recognized for what they know they are--members of our communities.

They have all grown up here. They have all been educated here. Every school day morning they have stood before the American flag and made the pledge of allegiance. They read and write and speak English; they dream dreams of what they will do when they grow up. But until the Dream Act passes, they remain in hiding, hostages to the decisions that someone else made some time ago.

Should the Dream Act pass, the lovely Claudia, a student who finished college with straight A's and simply wants to teach grade school could apply for a job as a teacher. Our schools need Claudia in the worst way.

Should the Dream Act pass, Eric, an extraordinary young man with a burning desire to study medicine would in fact be able to continue his studies. Eric tells me that he would simply like to be a family practice physician. "I like to help people," he says, "that's all I ask, is to be able to help people."

This post was written by Michael Seifert from his blog, Musings From Alongside the Border.