Thread: Immigrants' kids deserve this Dream

Gerald Britt: Immigrants' kids deserve this Dream

Education and justice belong to all races and classes
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 4023.html#

09:15 AM CDT on Friday, August 3, 2007

I want to go on the public record as a supporter of the Dream Act.

You may have never heard of it and, like me, would not have thought a great deal about it if you had. My support is provoked by two incidents that force me to confront an issue that finds me somewhat conflicted.

Two young Hispanic people, Monica and José, were picked up in Greenville at a senior skip day gathering earlier this year. However you feel about kids skipping school, senior skip day is an unofficial tradition that goes back to my ancient day.

The problem is, this brother and sister are not citizens. Their parents are undocumented, even though they have been in this country since Monica was 5. Now two young people – who have done nothing but go to school, prepare for a bright future and make their community proud – could be deported.

Similarly, young Victoria Chiwara is an immigrant from Zimbabwe. She and her family came to America seeking asylum. Her attorney missed a filing deadline, and this young lady, enrolled in community college in Tarrant County, with a scholarship to Baylor University, was threatened with deportation, until her friends and the media intervened.

The Dream Act legislation would provide temporary legal status to any child of undocumented immigrants who has no record of criminal activity and completes high school, enrolls in a two- or four-year institution of higher education or enlists in the armed forces. As I see it, this is legislation in the best interest of the children of undocumented immigrants and our country.

I understand anxiety among African-Americans that a focus on immigration reform comes at the expense of our own struggle for justice. The National Urban League's audit of black America's progress is a torrent of statistical social inequities showing that when it comes to poverty, employment, education, housing and incarceration, black people are not doing well.

But a commitment to total justice for black Americans cannot mean hatefulness toward others. The African-American legacy has always been the championing of human rights for all. Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the door to equality for all citizens. The hope inspired by these august achievements makes our country attractive to people from all across the globe.

We and our allies have challenged America to make room for all people. This cannot apply only to the sons and daughters of former slaves and slave owners; it must also apply to immigrants.

The rhetoric of some in our post-9/11 world suggests the "illegal" presence of immigrants represents a security threat. We must not be swayed by 9/11 paranoia and xenophobia that scapegoats the foreign born and those of foreign ancestry. Forgotten is the fact that the 19 hijackers who caused the devastation in New York entered the country legally. And the most horrible terrorist act prior to 9/11 wasn't committed by an undocumented alien but by an American named Timothy McVeigh.

The challenge of immigration is rooted in America's failure to deal with race. Thomas Jefferson, another conflicted American, said that dealing with race is "like holding a wolf by the ears, you did not like it much, but you dare not let it go." We must deal with racial injustice, class inequity and immigration.

The Dream Act isn't the total answer. It is, however, a meaningful start.

The Rev. Gerald Britt is vice president of public policy for Central Dallas Ministries. His e-mail address is gbritt@centraldallas ministries.org.

The Dream Act isn't the total answer. It is, however, a meaningful start.

A meaningful start to what? Amnesty? The end of the Unites States as a sovereign nation? The total Latinization of America?

From my understanding they aren't being denied access to go to school....they want in-state tuition. Before that ever got on the table they started adding grants to the list because their families are poor. In all honesty I don't think in-state tuition is their objective....it's getting it to FREE education and then tying that to citizenship.

Heck....I couldn't afford out-of-state tuition. So I went and moved to that state and lived there over a year and worked and made my in-state requirements in order to go. Worked my way through with no loans or grants or scholarships. There's students who live one mile from a border and the college they want to go to is a stones throw from there. They can't get in-state tuition ..... but they can do what I did and move there. There's this entitlement that they must have it right now right when they want it and it must be free and easy. College isn't free here. It's not a right all kids are guarenteed to have. But these kids are not citizens.....they aren't even here legally.....they should pay just like anyone else and shouldn't be entitled to things our own citizens don't get.

Illegal is illegal. MOD EDIT
Sorry, it's across the board. Illegals need to get sent back where they came from. We can't have a list of except this one, except that one. It has to be across the board or not at all. Not at all is not an answer. America has immigration laws that need to be enforced. Yes, there are going to be problems for some, but there is a serious problem in America that has to be delt with.
Breaking the law is breaking the law. There can't be exceptions. I've heard so many sad stories, and heart breaking talk. I've also heard roars of revolution for illegals. I've heard the threats from illegals that they are going to take our country away from us. No, keeping any of them here is not the answer.
Hopefully, the good ones will fill in the paperwork, go thru the proper channels and be allowed to come back. That is the only fair thing to do. It's the law. Many thousands are in line doing the legal immigrant paperwork. They deserve to come first.
Your friend shouldn't of broken the law to come here. That was the first mistake. We didn't make that choice for her. We just want our laws enforced.

We and our allies have challenged America to make room for all people.

So we have to make room for ALL people now? All 6.7 BILLION of them? And I suppose we should give them all free healthcare, free welfare, food stamps, housing, education with of course, free college tution. Why not free cars, after all they can't survive here without a car. And they can't get by without a PC, for that matter an X-Box, DVD player, jacuzzi, jet ski, cappuccino maker and of course we absolutely have to give them all a 120" big screen plasma HD-TV with satellite dish. Or do we continue on with our currrent institutionally racist, genocidal, inhumane treatment of the world's poor innocent people?

And they can't get by without a PC, for that matter an X-Box, DVD player, jacuzzi, jet ski, cappuccino maker and of course we absolutely have to give them all a 120" big screen plasma HD-TV with satellite dish.

Wonder when mine will be arriving? I haven't got mine yet and I do NEED it. Heck.....I want the American Dream too!

Words like "deserve" drive their sense of entitlement.

Originally Posted by Chosen

Words like "deserve" drive their sense of entitlement.

That's a very interesting statement, Chosen. It makes me wonder: just what makes one "deserving"?

Just having a heartbeat doesn't make a 20-year-old deserving of a free education. Nor does being poor, or a minority, or disabled.

Nobody "deserves" anything, in my opinion...EXCEPT the right to the pursuit of happiness. But in that pursuit, one must abide by the rule of law in their land. And if one disagrees with those laws, then one must go about effecting change in a peaceful, orderly manner.

And herein lies the problem with the illegals. They're pursuing happiness in a land that is NOT THEIR'S. And they're disobeying the laws in our land.

They need to go back where they came from and pursue happiness and try to enact change there.

They don't "deserve" anything from Americans other than a swift kick in the butt, straight back to where they came from.

Re:

Immigrants' kids deserve this Dream

Ha - misnomer on it's face!

We aren't talking about 'immigrants' though. If we were, we'd have no reason to even have this discussion. The subject involved here is the children of illegal aliens.

Why should children of illegal aliens be guaranteed something that citizen university enrollees not be given? (in-state tuition). Plus, giving them any kind of official legal status allows them to later to petition for other family members for legal status later. Sorry, I can't buy into this line of reasoning.

I'm sorry, but nothing will convince me that illegals are 'deserving' or 'entitled' to anything from U.S. taxpayers. They shouldn't be in this country to begin with. I am certainly not going to give them an incentive to stay.