Thread: Mary Turck: Help immigrant students to keep the dream alive

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5423705.html

Last update: May 25, 2005 at 7:03 PM
Mary Turck: Help immigrant students to keep the dream alive
Mary Turck
May 26, 2005 TURCK0526


On May 18, in a last-minute, behind-the-scenes maneuver, Gov. Tim Pawlenty shattered the dreams of Minnesota immigrant students. Threatening a veto of the entire Higher Education Omnibus bill, Pawlenty forced the withdrawal from the omnibus bill of the Minnesota Dream Act, also called the in-state tuition bill. This bill, which had strong bipartisan support and sponsorship in the House and Senate, would have extended in-state tuition rates to immigrant students who have grown up in Minnesota and graduated from Minnesota high schools.

To understand the impact of the governor's action, imagine that you are a high school junior in Minneapolis or Owatonna or Litchfield or Moorhead. You came to Minnesota with your parents more than 10 years ago. You've attended Minnesota schools since first grade. As you were a young child when you arrived, learning English was easy. Your parents and teachers are proud of how well you have done in school. Now you want to go to college, perhaps to become a teacher yourself.

If you were a Wisconsin resident, you could pay close to in-state tutition of about $8,000 per year at the University of Minnesota. If you were a New York or California resident, you could live here for one year, and then register at the University of Minnesota and pay in-state tuition.

But you do not have permanent legal resident status. So it does not matter that you have lived in Minnesota for more than 10 years. It does not matter that Minneapolis or Owatonna or Litchfield or Moorhead is the only hometown that you know. If you want to attend the University of Minnesota, you have to pay out-of-state tutition of about $20,000 per year.

Thousands of Minnesota students face this dilemma. Between 300 and 500 undocumented students a year graduate from Minnesota high schools. The Minnesota Dream Act would allow them to pay in-state tuition. No free ride -- just a fair shot at an education. Similar legislation has been enacted into law in other states, including Texas, California, Utah, New York, Washington, Illinois and Oklahoma.

Angela, a high school student from Faribault, said earlier this year: "Ever since I came from Mexico at 13, school has been hard but I've struggled to succeed. As I prepare to graduate from high school, I find that I don't qualify for in-state tuition rates. I can't afford to go to college and I fear the struggle was all for nothing. I dream that the governor will hear my story and make this law so that students like me don't get left behind."

Hundreds of young people -- citizens and immigrants -- from high schools around Minnesota participated in this year's legislative process. They wrote to their representatives and came to the Legislature. They testified at hearings and lobbied legislators. Many students returned over and over to watch the legislative process in action.

They cheered when committee members voted for the Dream Act and when the Senate included it in the Omnibus Higher Education bill. They thought they'd seen the legislative process in action, and they thought they'd seen it respond to their pleas for fairness. They were ready to go to the next level, beginning to work for the passage of the federal DREAM Act.

On the federal level, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act was introduced with bipartisan support in the last session of Congress, and will be reintroduced this year. To be eligible under the federal DREAM Act, a student must have been brought to the United States more than five years ago at age 15 or younger. When the student graduates from high school, he or she could apply for conditional legal residence for up to six years while attending a college or serving in the military. If the student completes at least two years of college or military service during that six-year residence, he or she could apply for permanent legal residence.

The Minnesota Dream Act could not give our Minnesota students a route to legal residence or citizenship, but it could give them a chance to keep their dreams alive through college. Pawlenty's veto threat shattered those dreams. Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, and Rep. Ray Cox, R-Northfield, plan to re-introduce the Dream Act as stand-alone legislation in the special session. The Legislature, the governor and all of us have one more chance to keep immigrant students' dreams alive. Let your legislators and the governor know that you want to see the Minnesota Dream Act become law.

Mary Turck is editor of Connection to the Americas, a publication of the Resource Center of the Americas, and of www.americas.org.

FYI--The Minnesota Dream ACT is not an agenda to help Minnesotans. This is part of the National Council of La Raza national agenda to allow aliens to take over our nation's colleges and universities, which under the McCain Kennedy Senate Bill No. 1033 will automatically entitle them to legal resident status because education is considered employment by the McCain Kennedy Secure American and Orderly Immigration Act, the Act NOT TO ACT, the Act that gives amnesty to all illegals in the US as well as their illegal employers.

WAKE UP MINNESOTA!! Support the Governor who did the right thing for your state and the American People.

These are spots citizens of Minnesota need and are legally entitled to, this is the dream of Minnesotans that was placed at risk by the Dream Act of the National Council of La Raza.

Good Governor you have there!! Keep up the good work Gov!!

We need to find out the Governor's email address and send him a free Hallmark e-thank you card.

Hallmark -- when you care enough to send the very best.

Cause he did his best, let me tell ya!

tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

http://www.governor.state.mn.us/tpaw_contacts.asp


Have Fun

Either get legal status by applying for citizenship or pay out of state tuition.

Disagree -- get citizenship then get out of state tuition. Otherwise get deported!!

Thanks for the email addys!

www.hallmark.com if you're interested.

I definitely think of La Raza as racist. Any group which is not racist would advocate education for all races and not just one. Did you know there is also a national association of caucasion hispanics-oh but I guess that is okay. Why cant my beloved anglos have a strictly anglo american league for education. Sometimes I do find this country to be strange.

I definitely think of La Raza as racist.

Why wouldn't you when La Raza means "The Race"????????????

sonali--our country is not strange....it only seems so right now, because evil people have been working under our noses and behind our backs for many years with full complicity of the Main Stream Media who has agreed NOT TO REPORT these events. These are the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine, AOL Time Warner (which owns so many communication organizations).

What we are experiencing and dealing with and fighting to overcome is a cancer in our politics....we missed the early diagnosis....because we trusted our government; we trusted our elected officials; we trusted our public corporations; we trusted our schools and colleges and universities; we trusted our media.

WE can never TRUST them again.

With respect to the Hispanic organizations....in 1974....during the Jimmy Carter Presidency....National Council of La Raza and others including the professor from Texas, Gutierrez worked a deal with our Congress that declared Hispanics....a MINORITY GROUP.....and because they are Caucasian and obviously NOT A MINORITY GROUP.....the created a reason.....Spanish-Speaking....they are treated as a Minority Group because of language....THAT IS WHY THEY KEEP THE LANGUAGE TO KEEP MINORITY STATUS and then qualify for all the special treatment, protected class status, benefits, services, preferential treatment....that is SO NOT DESERVED!!

IT's outrageous....and Carter I guess signed it in to law. I don't know if he promoted it, it's hard for me to imagine such an asburd thing got through Congress without the President at the time, Jimmy Carter, lobbying it through.

He may be a GOOD MAN, but he was NOT A GOOD PRESIDENT.

Look at the mess this has caused 31 years later!!

Minority because they refuse to learn English.....Ridiculous if not so Tragic!! These programs were meant for Black Americans who REALLY DESERVED AND NEEDED THEM.

Carter is a SOCIALIST/INTERNATIONALIST.............PERIOD.

A GOOD MAN doesn't knowingly {he does quite often} HURT HIS COUNTRY in the name of INTERNATIONALISM.........PERIOD!