(MintPress) – Alex, as a young boy, panickedly rushed across the California/Mexico border with his older brother in the middle of the night in the wake of overhead helicopter spotlights in order to reunite with his parents — who fled economically-ruptured Mexico six months earlier to find a better life. In a new land with little money, a different language and few prospects, growing up was hard for Alex, and he dwelled in self-hate and desperation. But, he still wanted to grow up to be an immigration lawyer, serving to improve the lives of people like himself.
Angela is an honor college student with an extracurricular resume, community volunteer record and academic record to be envied. She is also an undocumented alien from South Korea who was brought to this country as a baby — America is all she knows. Because of her status, her professional path promises to be much foggier that her academic one.
Gloria came to this country from Taiwan on a visitor’s visa when she was 15. Her grandmother could not afford the tuition for her local high school and sent her to her aunt’s home in Texas in order to give the teenager a better shot. Because Gloria’s father was a drifter, he could not be found to sign the paperwork needed to surrender custodial rights — which was a prerequisite for her aunt to adopt her. Despite graduating from high school with high honors, she was unable to enroll in her school of choice because she didn’t have a social security number; and despite graduating with distinction from the university she did ultimately enroll in, she is unable to secure a job for the same reasons.
These are but a few stories that can be found online about young men and women who have found their lives unfairly and irreplaceably altered or obstructed due to no fault of their own. Many undocumented immigrants were brought to this country as infants or children and have lived productive, peaceful lives in the only homeland they have known. Yet, current legislation and a specific subset of the populace have worked to deny these young adults a piece of the American Dream in the name of securing our borders.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are a high school student, top of your class, class salutatorian and captain of your varsity team. You dream of going to college with your friends and becoming a doctor. Unfortunately, because you are one of the 65,000 undocumented students who graduate from a U.S. high school per year, your dreams stop here.
The DREAM Act, or the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, was introduced in 2001 by Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), in which the bill would offer permanent residency to any undocumented immigrant who came to this country as a minor, is of good moral character and has completed two years of a baccalaureate program or two years of honorable service in the U.S. Armed Forces. (This is a bit of a catch-22 because you cannot enter military service as an illegal immigrant. Federal law requires that all military personnel be citizens or legal residents of the United States. If you was to seek permanent residency through the DREAM Act using the military requirement, you could be arrested for falsification of your military application.)
As of the writing of this article, the federal government has not passed the DREAM Act, despite the bill being reintroduced to the Senate every year since its 2009 re-introduction. Eleven states — Texas, California, Illinois, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, Washington, Wisconsin and Maryland — have a version of the DREAM Act legislation as state law.
The rationale for the Dream Act
Homeland Security News Wire recently reported that a study conducted by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE) estimates that $329 billion would be generated through the year 2030 if the DREAM Act passes nationally. The Congressional Budget Office in its 2010 Cost Estimate, previously predicted a net spending increase of $912 million over the 2011-2020 period — in part due to increases in student loans, Medicare, Social Security and refundable tax credits. This is offset by $2.3 billion in new tax revenue over the same 10 years. (However, the same report indicated that the additional registrants to the federal health insurance exchanges — as prescribed under the Affordable Care Act — would increase the projected deficit by more than $5 billion over at least one of the consecutive 10-year periods starting in 2021.)
The CBO projects that the actual implementation of the Act would be revenue-neutral, since fees collected for application processing would pay for the Department of Homeland Security’s implementation of the legislation.
Pia Orrenius, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas told My San Antonio, “In general, immigrants have a positive economic impact, especially when immigration is employment based … Deportations are definitely hurtful in the sense that you’re losing people who are not only contributing to the economy, but that are also consuming housing services, driving cars, holding bank loans, credit cards and consuming other retail goods.”
A CAP study released this year indicates that if just 15 percent of Texas’ illegal immigrants were deported, the state would suffer a loss of $11.7 billion in lost earnings and consumption. The same study showed that immigrants with legal status and a higher education will have a 19 percent increase in earning power by 2030. This money would likely be spent locally, creating a demand for new jobs and services.
Benita Veliz is a 27-year-old DREAM Act advocate who was allowed to introduce Cristina Saralegui, journalist and host of the former Univision talk show Cristina, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Veliz — a National Merit Scholar and St. Mary’s University graduate — faced deportation because of a 2009 incident in which she rolled through a stop sign without a driver’s license. She was saved only when — this June — President Obama issued an Executive Order stopping the deportation of illegal immigrants who came to this country as children.
Even though her remarks were only two minutes in length, many remember her short remarks more than Saralegui’s speech, which Veliz’s speech was the segue for:
“My name is Benita Veliz, and I’m from San Antonio, Texas. Like so many Americans of all races and backgrounds, I was brought here as a child. I’ve been here ever since.
I graduated as valedictorian of my class at the age of 16 and earned a double major at the age of 20. I know I have something to contribute to my economy and my country. I feel just as American as any of my friends or neighbors.
But I’ve had to live almost my entire life knowing I could be deported just because of the way I came here.
… We will keep fighting for reform, but while we do, we are able to work, study and pursue the American dream.”
The rationale against the Dream Act
Those who oppose the DREAM Act travel in well-worn lines. Questions about fairness in the immigration process, due process under law, affordability, and protection to the applicant has been weighed out, debated and refuted in multiple arenas at multiple times. Many questions, such as if the nation can afford the Act, were answered in length by the CBO and other organizations. Others — such as if this program is a military recruitment tool in disguise — seems valid, but don’t measure up upon closer examination. Ultimately, there is one argument that supports continual opposition to the DREAM Act: nativism.
In 1798, the United States passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, a series of laws that were meant to limit French and Irish immigration at the time, as the French were considered a potential enemy after the events of the Quasi-War. Though most of the legislation was rolled back, it was introduced initially to avoid the succession of several states under Democratic-Republicans. The bill increased the mandatory stay in America for citizenship candidates from five years to 14; empowered the president to deport any alien for being from a nation at war with the U.S. or being considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States”; and made it illegal to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government. Most experts consider this the first nativist law in this country.
Nativism is the act of preserving a certain established identity — such as White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture — in a country in defiance of the multiculturalism that immigration brings. There is a fear of losing what makes America America — of diluting the national identity. There is also the fear of suppression: “There are only so many jobs and places to live,” according to those that subscribe to this theory; “a foreigner can come in and take what was mine.” This xenophobic attitude helped to define America and many of America’s policies; Benjamin Franklin famously hated the Germans, and in the 19th century, Catholics (particularly Irish-Catholics) and the Chinese were singled out.
The fear of what is different is a very human reflex; it has kept us safe since the species’ prehistory. However, it is time to put such antiquated tools aside if we are to progress as a people.
The middle ground
Nelson Mandala once said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” If we are truly a nation of conscience, we must own up to the way we treat the meekest among us. Illegal immigrants who are children or who entered this country as children did nothing to deserve the scorn heaped on them, and the notion that making an exception for them penalizes other immigrants that entered legally overlook one points: other immigrants had a choice on whether to enter the nation or not.
The DREAM Act is not an amnesty program; those with a criminal record may not apply, and committing a crime removes you from the program. It is not a hand-out, either; those who would benefit from this program have proven to be productive, healthy additions to the economy and society.
The 2012 presidential election was a referendum on immigration concerns. Democrats, on the basis of immigration reform, won the Latino vote at a rate to 3 to 1. Most experts agree that a national platform that ignores Latino concerns will fail in this multicultural resistance. The reality is that, politically, there are no majorities anymore; there are no populations that can be ignored or underplayed.
Ultimately, the DREAM Act is a way to correct the inadequacy and unintentional effects of our dreams of being free of outside threats. It’s a way of offering the American Dream to all Americans, despite the details of their birth.
It’s a way to be fair.