Please call Sen. Conrad and urge him to oppose the "Dream Act" amnesty, as it looks like he is supporting it now:

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The Hill
Dems make last-minute push for DREAM Act
By Mike Lillis - 12/08/10 12:28 PM ET

With both the House and Senate poised to vote on the DREAM Act Wednesday, Democratic leaders are making an 11th-hour pitch for the 10-year-old proposal.

In an emotional Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday morning, Democratic leaders from both Congress and the White House argued that the proposal — creating a pathway to legal residency for hundreds of thousands of illegal-immigrant students — would benefit not only those children, but the whole country.

"This is so much in our national interest," said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.), "because it will produce people who will go to the level of their skills."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan echoed that message. Citing a new report ranking the U.S. 25th of 34 nations in math, Duncan said the DREAM Act would help the country "educate ourselves to a better economy."

"We need their ingenuity; we need their creativity; we need their entrepreneurship skills," Duncan said. "To have them stay on the sidelines at a time when we're being outcompeted by the rest of the world educationally makes absolutely no sense."

Democratic leaders say they don't know if they have the votes to pass the bill in either chamber. But simply staging the votes marks a victory for immigrant-rights advocates, who have long argued that the children of those who have entered the United States illegally shouldn't be punished for the actions of their parents.

The votes will also send a message to Hispanic Americans, an ever-growing group of voters that both parties are racing to bring into their fold.

"It's an uphill struggle in both the House and Senate," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the sponsor of the Senate bill. "But it's worth the fight."

A similar measure was shot down in the Senate in 2007, though the language has changed since then, leaving a number of votes uncertain. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), for instance, opposed the bill three years ago, but says he's not so sure he'll do the same this time.

[b]Pulling a summary of the changes from his breast pocket Wednesday morning, Conrad pointed out that beneficiaries of the new DREAM Act won't be eligible for Pell grants or other federal tuition assistance. He also noted that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the bill would cut deficit spending by $1.4 billion over the next decade.

The changes, he said, "have made a strong impression on me."

"This is very substantially differentâ€