DREAM Diverted

Last week, United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated that he was going to add the DREAM Act as an amendment to the 2011 fiscal year defense bill, S. 3434. Today, when the motion to proceed to consideration came up for vote it failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to proceed. Senator Reid switched his vote on the motion to a “no” vote so that he could save the possibility of bringing the bill up again later.

This serves as a blow to millions of children who were brought here under the age of sixteen by their parents and are currently undocumented. The DREAM Act would allow these individuals, if they have been accepted to college, have a high school diploma or GED, to obtain Lawful Permanent Resident status.

The saddest part about the vote today is that those that are not in favor of immigration reform were able to tout this as “amnesty” when it clearly is not; using terms like “granting citizenship” and “disguised amnesty” continue to harm opportunities for young people educated in the United States who have no other way of obtaining any lawful status. These people are therefore either forced to return to a country that they have no actual memory of or remain in the shadows, further deepening a rift in classes and igniting deeper tensions in an already disturbing debate on immigration reform.
http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=33166

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