Why is the Dream Act important?

Lunch time.  I'm checking email and eating a salad at my desk.  She walks in: 9th grader, white t-shirt and Dickies.  Hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, she grips a cell phone in her hand.

She asks, "Miss, can I sit in here until the bell rings?"

I nod, clicking keys and turning down the liberal radio blaring behind me.

Her cell phone rings.  It's on speaker.  He's yelling at her, ordering her around.

"You're not talking to your stupid, fat friend again, are you?  I told you to stay away from that b*****!"

"No.  I'm with my teacher," she says.  "It's my teacher!  It's just my teacher!"

When they hang up I say something...  I'm not sure what...  I comment that he sounds controlling.  I remind her of her gifted scores and her straight A's.  I ask her about college.

"Nothing matters," she replies.  "Miss...  I'm illegal.  I don't have a future."

I stop everything, not knowing what to say, wondering, "Can that be that true?" 

I've been reading the papers, but can it really be true now?  Does nothing we do in school matter anymore because our students are illegal and have no hope for a future?  I panic.

"I hear what you're saying but it can't be true.  Let me email the counselors.  They must know more than me," I tell her.

Flurries of emails fly back and forth.  A counselor writes: "This year is decidedly different.  Many of our finest students are undocumented and we are all well aware of the fact.  In fact, it's not unusual to know the valedictorian or salutatorian to have undocumented status."  She goes on to say that in the past these students were heavily recruited and garnered scholarships and private donor money to live in the dormitories of universities based on their scholarship and community service.  But because of prop 300 these same kids who we have loved, encouraged and mentored, who have "spotless legal records," (other than the moment they were carried across the border by their families) will be LEFT BEHIND.  

Enter: THE DREAM ACT! S. 2075 Bipartisan legislation sponsored most recently by Durbin, Hagel, Lugar.  Original sponsors were Coleman, Craig, Crapo, DeWine, Finegold, Kennedy, Leahy, Lieberman, McCain, and Obama.  Even Senator Orin Hatch was an original sponsor of the Dream Act as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when it passed through in 2003. 

Because of the democratic influence in the legistative branch following the 2006 elections, the DREAM ACT finally has a chance to become law THIS YEAR!

What would The Dream Act accomplish?

According to the National Immigration Law Center, The Dream Act would do two major things:

1) "Permit certain immigrant students who have grown up in the U.S. to apply for temporary legal status and eventually obtain permanent status and become eligible  for citizenship if they go to college or serve in the military.

2) "Eliminate a federal provision that penalizes states that provide in-state tuition without regard to legal status."

Please unite for our children, for our future.  Unite for the children we've been educating for thirteen years, who want to contribute, who love this country....  Please... Write your congress people! Tell them to support the Dream Act!

To see the economic benefits of completing the education of our sons and daughters who attend school and behave peacefully eveyday and other details of The Dream Act go to www.nilc.org

Debbie