A DREAM Deferred: Federal DREAM Act Fades in Lame Duck Congress
With student and adult protestors surrounding the Capitol, the Federal Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act died in Congress’s latest lame duck—albeit, unusually productive—session. Senate Democrats were unable to muster the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture—the procedure necessary for overcoming the largely Republican filibuster. The DREAM Act would afford a path to full American citizenship to the most innocuous immigrant group: educated, non-criminal illegal immigrants who entered the US before age 16. In order to obtain citizenship, these immigrants would be required to serve in the US military and/or complete two years of post-secondary education, among other requirements.
With staggeringly low college attendance rates and a shortage of qualified military personnel, the US stands to benefit tremendously from the DREAM Act’s offer of full citizenship in exchange for education and/or military service. Some states have already enacted similar measures. Recognizing the critical importance of education for all members of society, Illinois is one of just a handful of states that grants in-state tuition rates to undocumented high school graduates. Illinois’s own Senator Richard Durbin introduced the DREAM Act in early 2009 and has championed it ever since.
Had the DREAM Act passed, hundreds of thousands of young adults would have received the immediate benefit of legal resident status. These residents, who were brought to the US as (often very young) children, currently live in emotional and legal conflict: they live illegally in this country, but their country of origin—a place without their friends and immediate family—is no longer their home. They are very likely to stay in the US regardless of their legal status. But if they remain illegally, fear of deportation will continue to discourage them from seeking higher education and thus meaningful, income tax-generating, employment.
The DREAM is not dead. It has been hailed widely as bipartisan and fair, and it has the support of military leadership, as well as many conservatives. The majority of the Senate voted in favor of the bill, including the venerated chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. Critics of the Act say it rewards illegal activity and will encourage more illegal immigration. That may be true, but immigrants who are well educated and willing to serve the country are not the sort of people the US should be turning away.