New Congress More Amenable to the DREAM Act

By Charles Dervarics

A bill to eliminate many higher education barriers for undocumented students may get new life in the now Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress, say advocates who hope to break a six-year stalemate on the issue.

Student groups and minority-serving organizations are touting the benefits of the DREAM Act, a bill that would open a path to immigration for college-bound students who have lived most of their lives in the United States but lack legal status. Under the bill, students who finish high school and at least two years of college could obtain permanent legal residency. They also could get greater access to in-state tuition rates.

“There are signs that Congress is beginning to take this seriously,” says Melissa Lazarin, associate director for education policy at the National Council of La Raza. She says she is encouraged that lawmakers have introduced the DREAM Act in both the House and the Senate already this year. “In past years, we haven’t been able to move this quickly,” she says.

In introducing the bill, lawmakers noted that college access for these students may help immigrant communities as well as the national economy.

“We hinder our competitiveness in the global economy by keeping large numbers of U.S.-educated immigrant young people out of college,” says U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif.

Since the DREAM Act was first introduced in 2001, about 390,000 undocumented youth have graduated from high school with few realistic hopes of attending college, according to NCLR.

“When they finish high school, these students choose between working illegally or trying somehow to continue their education while under a legal cloud,” says U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., another co-sponsor of the bill.

The DREAM Act has met with varied degrees of support in the past six years. In May 2006, it passed the Senate as part of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, but the House never took up the measure.
It has earned as many as 48 Senate co-sponsors — including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz. — and 150 House co-sponsors.