Thread: As Push for DREAM Act Reawakens, Battle Lines in Mass.

As Push for DREAM Act Reawakens, Battle Lines are Drawn in Massachusetts

By Tanya Pérez-Brennan

Published May 26, 2011

The battle over the DREAM Act – the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2011, which would offer undocumented immigrants a route to legal status – is flaring up again after President Barack Obama's May 10 speech on immigration reform in El Paso, Texas, and the subsequent move by Senate Democrats to reintroduce the measure.

But the political front lines of the fight are in the state legislatures, and nowhere is the outcome of the battle more in doubt than in New England, home of six of the 26 U.S. Senators who voted to reintroduce the bill.

In Massachusetts, policymakers are voting Thursday night on an amendment in the State Senate that would make it illegal for undocumented students to pay for in-state tuition. This comes on the heels of a similar bill granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrant students in neighboring Connecticut.

"It would be a blow to passage of the DREAM Act at the federal level and it would be a contradiction that one state like Connecticut passed it and a Democratic state like Massachusetts didn’t," said Franklin Soults, communications director for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, or MIRA.

Those who support the measure say that undocumented youth should not be penalized for being brought here at an early age by their parents, who then overstayed their visas or weren’t able to legalize their status.

One of those undocumented immigrant youth is Denis Lemos, for whom passage of the DREAM Act would be life-altering.

“That would be the best thing that could happen to my life right now,â€

Those who support the measure say that undocumented youth should not be penalized for being brought here at an early age by their parents, who then overstayed their visas or weren’t able to legalize their status

sorry I don't agree. No Dream Act No Amnesty.

[quote]“There are a lot of students who are not criminals,â€