DREAM FACTION CONTINUES TO PRESS CONGRESS

The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA.)
December 3, 2010
BY DAVID OLSON

Inland immigrant and Latino activists are visiting Inland congressional offices and phoning voters throughout the country in a last-minute desperate push for passage of the DREAM Act, which would create a path to legal residency for young illegal immigrants who attend college or enlist in the military.

Activists rallied today at the offices of Reps. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs and David Dreier, R-San Dimas, who represents part of western San Bernardino County.

A vote on the bill is expected in the next several days.

Backers of the DREAM Act have also been staffing phone banks in Riverside and San Bernardino to call senators and House members and to ask voters in other states to contact their elected officials, said Andrea Ortega, a Fontana resident and UCLA graduate who this year helped form the Inland Empire DREAM Team, a coalition of undocumented Inland students and their supporters. They are continuing calls all weekend and next week.

Ortega, 23, is a U.S.-born citizen but said she has had high-achieving friends who did not pursue higher education because they all are in the country illegally.

"These are people who I grew up with who have so much potential and so many dreams," said Ortega, who plans to participate in the actions at the offices of Dreier and Lewis.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would make undocumented young people eligible for legal residency if they only complete two years of post-secondary education or military service, have lived in the United States for at least five years and arrived at age 15 or younger, and have not been convicted of a serious crime.

One version of the bill includes an age limit of 34; another has an age limit of 29.

Lewis, who will be in Washington, D.C., when activists visit his office today, will not vote for the bill in its current form nor any other form currently presented by Reid, said spokesman Jim Specht.

"It takes way too many people into account and is too broad," Specht said.

Lewis also strongly opposes a clause that grants conditional legal residency to young illegal immigrants for six years after they apply under the act, he said.

Lewis is only open to listening to arguments in favor of a more very narrowly tailored proposal, Specht said.

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