Thread: The NEW dream act purposal

HAYWARD -- Optimistic that Congress has a slim chance of getting the Dream Act passed, undocumented students rallied throughout the Bay Area this week as Senate Leader Harry Reid advanced a compromise version of the immigration bill.

The revised bill would still offer a path to citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people who entered the country illegally as minors if they graduate from high school and pursue college or military service, but the path would take longer and exclude more people.

The version filed this week by Reid, D-Nevada, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, lowered the maximum age of eligibility to 30 from 35, created a 13-year wait for citizenship and closed some of the loopholes that opponents had argued made the earlier versions too lenient and broad. The legislation has always barred people with serious criminal histories, but the new version disqualifies illegal immigrants convicted of marriage and voter fraud, draft-dodging, smuggling and other misdemeanor and felony crimes.

Beneficiaries would be able to live in the United States on a conditional visa for 10 years, and the new language prohibits them from obtaining most forms of federal assistance during that time.

Some of the amendments seemed designed to attract moderate lawmakers who have been on the fence and to combat allegations that the Dream Act -- versions of which have been floated in Congress for about a decade -- seeks to create a pliant Democratic voting base
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of newly empowered citizens. If Reid's stricter new version of the Dream Act were passed this month, undocumented immigrants who meet the act's requirements would be able to work legally in the country but could not become citizens, and voters, until at least December 2024, said El Cerrito lawyer Katy Chase Shklovsky, a spokeswoman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

They also would not be eligible to petition for parents and other immediate relatives to join them until at least that year, and only if those relatives had not already violated immigration laws.

This latest proposal brings to five the number of versions of the Dream Act that have been floating around the Senate, some for a few weeks and others for years. Reid faces an uphill battle in getting nearly all of the Senate's 58 Democrats on board, along with a few Republicans. Some, such as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, had expressed disapproval of the earlier legislation and wanted changes, but it was not clear Wednesday if Reid's adjustments would win any of them over.

Reid's maneuvers could push the bill to a vote next week, but Senate Republicans have announced they would filibuster any legislation, including the Dream Act, that came before they could resolve debates over tax policy and the federal budget. The House is also scheduled to vote on its own version of the Dream Act this week or next.

A group of students and faculty members held a rally Wednesday at Chabot College in Hayward. They were optimistic the bill stood a chance, and fearful of what would happen if it didn't.

"After I'm done with college, it's all going to go to waste," said Chabot student Karina Lara, 20, who wants to be a pediatric nurse but has been in the country illegally since she was 5 months old.

When she graduated from Hayward's Mt. Eden High School, the Mexican immigrant became one of an estimated 65,000 students nationwide who leave secondary school each year in a limbo state, unable to work and, in many cases, unable to afford college because of their inability to work and qualify for loans.

"I've been here since I was five months old," Lara said. "I'm more American than Mexican."

Lara and fellow Chabot student Alfredo Alvarado, 18, said they were hopeful the compromises would make a difference in winning over moderate lawmakers. Most students would still be eligible under Reid's amendments.

"My life would be so different," said Alvarado, an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant from Union City. "I just want the opportunity to work here in this country and support myself."

Oakland Mayor-elect Jean Quan was set to participate in another local rally Thursday, and a caravan of students from Southern California was visiting the Stockton office of Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, on Wednesday afternoon. McNerney spokeswoman Sarah Hersh said before the rally that the congressman sees positive aspects to the bill, including the military service provision, but was still reviewing it.

Marin County's Rick Oltman, founder of a new group he calls the Immigration Tea Party, which opposes any form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, believes the lame-duck DREAM Act push is a "cruel hoax" meant to appease Latino voters who helped re-elect Reid and stanched the Republican tide in the West.

"There's no chance that this thing is going to pass," Oltman said. Nevertheless, opponents of the DREAM Act this week were trying to match the supporters' nationwide movement by making thousands of calls and e-mails to undecided lawmakers


http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_16752768


Just FYI
I bet the fine print dumps all the good stuff , besides , it mentions nothing about enforcement

This shall not pass

Moved from Discussion to News.

How about all these high school and college kids signing a document stating they agree to wait until 2024 for complete legal status, and they agree that they never be allowed to sponsor any family members for immigration to the U.S. Also, any children they may have cannot sponsor faimily members outside the U.S.