Thread: Illegal immigrant students tell of lost opportunities

By Maria Sacchetti
Globe Staff / November 26, 2010 After Sunday services, they trooped upstairs for a talk. In the small crowd was an aspiring medical student from India, a Brazilian youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT, and a budding young businesswoman from the Dominican Republic. Each is in the United States illegally, and each had come to reveal stories of their immigration status to strangers — and to tell of opportunities cut short by laws that discourage even promising students from advancing to college.

“For a long time I never wanted to give away that I’m undocumented,’’ said the 24-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic, as she nervously told her story to more than a dozen listeners at the First Parish congregation in Cambridge. “When I got to high school, that’s when it really hit me that I had limitations. It’s been a constant struggle.’’

The testimonials are part of a drive to win support for the controversial federal Dream Act as backers try to bring it to a vote before Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives in January. An effort to pass the Dream Act failed in September, but Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada has pledged to bring it up for a vote in the coming days or weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has supported the act in the past but has not said whether she would push for a vote, said spokesman Carlos Sanchez. Hundreds of supporters are expected to gather Monday afternoon for a rally at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston.

The Dream Act has languished for nine years amid criticism that it rewards immigrant families that overstayed their visas or crossed illegally into the United States. But others say students — as many as 65,000 who graduate from high school every year — should not be punished for their parents’ decisions to bring them into the country illegally. Some are valedictorians; many have been in the country since they were small.

A 1982 US Supreme Court ruling guarantees illegal immigrant students a K-12 education. But a 1996 federal law bars them from receiving postsecondary education benefits such as financial aid.

Ten states have allowed such students to be eligible for in-state tuition rates. A law in Massachusetts passed in the Legislature in 2004, but it was vetoed by then-Governor Mitt Romney. Attempts to resurrect it have failed.

The Dream Act would clear the way for students to apply for legal residency if they arrived in the country before age 16 and have lived here for at least five consecutive years. They also must attend college or enlist in the military for two years and demonstrate good moral character, among other requirements.

Backers of the Dream Act say taxpayers have already invested in the public education of the students, such as the Harvard student detained last summer who had been in the country illegally since he was 4 years old, and should encourage them to go to college. The student, Eric Balderas, was released and allowed to stay and continue his studies.

Critics of the legislation say students should not be allowed to seek legal status while thousands are waiting in line to legally enter the United States. They also say the legislation lacks tools to deport youths who fail to fulfill the requirements.

Proponents of the Dream Act “need to be willing to address the concerns of people who feel that it’s too lenient and not addressing the root cause of the problem, which is illegal immigration,’’ said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tougher controls on immigration.

Though touted as a bipartisan measure, most of the bill’s supporters are Democrats, according to legislative aides, and the measure will need Republican support to pass.

Lawmakers are considering multiple versions of the bill to appeal to opponents, who include Senator Scott Brown. One would reduce the number of students who would be eligible for legal residency.

The act has received a groundswell of support from the academic community. The presidents of Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts, and other universities have backed the measure, together with many business leaders and the College Board.

The support is fueled in large part by the Student Immigrant Movement, a grass-roots organization that has staged rallies at Brown’s Senate office in Boston and told their personal stories to potential allies.

On Sunday’s visit to First Parish, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Cambridge, the 22-year-old from India, who asked not to be identified, said she, her mother, and a younger sibling stayed behind when their father immigrated to the United States and settled in Massachusetts. They waited six years for immigration papers, fruitlessly, before deciding to join him. In Massachusetts, she finished high school in three years but could not apply for government financial aid or pay resident tuition.

The 24-year-old student from the Dominican Republic said she was the only one in her family here illegally, that her mother did not include her on an immigration form. Raised by her grandmother, the young woman has been here since she was 3. She takes classes at a community college, when she can afford them.

Deivid Ribeiro, the son of a Baptist minister, told the group that he arrived from Brazil when he was 8 and grew up on Cape Cod. His family applied for legal residency but was rejected during his senior year in high school.

He takes classes at a state school when he can afford them, and at night he studies at MIT, networking in hopes that the private school — which, unlike public schools, could offer him a scholarship — will one day let him in.

“I want to be a scientist really, really badly,’’ Ribeiro said as volunteers passed around a silver plate that was quickly filled with checks and cash. “I do differential calculus every 35 minutes in my head.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... ?page=full

Well my son is a roofer too! So I'm really not feelin' ya.
Plus there's a college in mexico as good as MIT.
Doing calculus in his head over how much money is on that silver plate!
And they can blame their parents for the way America feels about this at this point. Sorry kid but my son was here first!

Originally Posted by stevetheroofer

Well my son is a roofer too! So I'm really not feelin' ya.
Plus there's a college in mexico as good as MIT.
Doing calculus in his head over how much money is on that silver plate!
And they can blame their parents for the way America feels about this at this point. Sorry kid but my son was here first!

Absolutely.

NY allows IA kids instate tuition. Just recently I caught a bit of an interview of Colin Powell in which he mentioned he is an alumni of CCNY. He went on to say how proud he is that today over 50% of the student body at CCNY is composed of kids that are either foreign born themselves or born to parents that are.

Originally Posted by topsecret10

...a Brazilian youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT

What about the American youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT?

Originally Posted by millere

Originally Posted by topsecret10

...a Brazilian youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT

What about the American youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT?

Apparently...the "dreams" of that American no longer matter. It's all about the illegal invader now....

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Originally Posted by millere

Originally Posted by topsecret10

...a Brazilian youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT

What about the American youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT?

Apparently...the "dreams" of that American no longer matter. It's all about the illegal invader now....

Tell me about it, I'd like my daughter to go to college one day too. They need to go back to their home country where they will not be illegal and they can attend college there. The only reason they want to go to college so badly here is so that they can take advantage of things like the PELL grant and other scholarships. They could care less about the fact that if they drain the hell out of the PELL grant, there will be nothing left for future American generations. So if they don't care about our future American generations, why should we really care about them?

I'm sick of these "sob"stories. The young people are country are being shoved around because of the IA mess. There are many American lower and middle class kids who are having opportunities taken away from them. A former co-worker of mine was the daughter of a man who earned his undergrad, grad and Ph.D from MIT. He started college at age 16 and he came from a middle class family that struggled at times to pay his tutiton but he did receive scholarships etc.

In today's America a young man in that type of situation is getting screwed over by a government and illegal aliens.

Originally Posted by millere

Originally Posted by topsecret10

...a Brazilian youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT

What about the American youth who dreams of studying physics at MIT?

Physics at MIT is not a piece of cake

You wouldn't believe what it takes to even get in their Phd program

http://web.mit.edu/physics/prospective/ ... index.html

good luck with that

oH booo FLIPPIN hoo HOO!!!!

These storys make me want to vomit! Lets all have a pitty party and post about all of the UNFARE crap that has happened all of our lives.

This is LIFE...deal with it.