The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation tonight that would create a path to citizenship for undocumented college students. The bill, known as the Dream Act, would also make such students eligible for federal financial aid. The Senate had also been scheduled to act on the bill on Wednesday, but has postponed its vote until Thursday.
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7 Responses to Dream Act Wins U.S. House Approval, but Still Awaits Senate Vote
lisarismiller - December 9, 2010 at 9:51 am
In mid-November I was chatting with an airport shuttle driver enroute to the San Jose aiport. When he learned I was in CA to visit my college-student son and that I worked for a university, he said, “Now, you’re just the person I need to talk to.”
While he wasn’t necessarily correct on that assumption, he proceeded to tell me that he knew a very intelligent and determined young Latina (also illegal) who desperately wanted to move beyond her current community college courses and pursue her dream of being an M.D. He didn’t say how he knew this young woman (he was a Caucasian man, I’d guess in his 60′s, a retired “state worker” he said), but the man got emotional telling me how this young woman, the eldest child of hardworking parents who’ve been in the U.S. for many years and are struggling to raise 7 children, manages to balance community college classes with a full-time job. She would love to be a full-time student, he said, but she needs to work to help support her family.
The driver asked me what he could do to support the passage of the Dream Act, because “she’s exactly the kind of person it’s meant to help.” I’m afraid I didn’t have much advice to offer, other than to tell him to contact his Congressional legislators and tell them the story he’d just told me. But I was truly moved by his earnestness. Perhaps this conversation has stuck with me because it happened just after all the “noise” of mid-term election campaigning had died down. But regardless of the cause, it was gratifying to see a glimpse of what a democratic society should be…one that motivates ordinary people to get involved to “support” something or someone, rather than just to knock down the “other” (person, party, platform, etc.).
greenhills73 - December 9, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Parents have been in the country “for many years” and have not attempted to secure citizenship for themselves or their children. Why? As a parent, I can tell you that one of the things that would motivate me to do the right thing is a disadvantage to my children. We need to stop rewarding people who are in this country illegally! Give me all the sob stories you want – they are easy to make up – but a lot of people have gone to the effort to do it the right way, and I do not think we should giving federal financial aid or in-state tuition to illegals. The young woman is old enough to apply for citizenship herself. Let her become a citizen and THEN she can go to college at reduced rates.
eh0928 - December 12, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Greenhills73, I have known some people who were here illegally and as a Political Science major who’s focusing on immigration, I’m fully aware of the “proper ways” to get citizenship. The thing is, there is no proper way to get it. You can get it by marrying someone who is a U.S. citizen, or if you’re the son or daughter of an American citizen and you apply for it before you’re 21 or if you have a marketable skill, you can get it through work. It’s very hard and many get denied, so many don’t even try. The fact is that these are the people who wash your dishes in the restaurants you go to, they’re our nannies and cleaning ladies. And also, the article is wrong, the newly revised bill would not allow those who qualify for the DREAM Act to get financial aid, food stamps or other kind of government help. In addition, please tell me how this is a reward. If anything, it’s earned citizenship – they have to go to school or YOUR military to fight for YOUR country while you talk about them like rats – I can almost compare the likes of you to Hitler who had a narrow idea of how a person should be. Please try to remember that unless you’re a Native American, you’re the descendant of an immigrant as well, and if someone would’ve stopped them from coming here, you might be one of these people, being treated like animals. The difference, most likely, was that when your ancestors came here, there weren’t many rules. I don’t see how this is bad. We’re not letting EVERY immigrant come in here, this is controlled immigration. We’re letting those who want to be in school or military just do that. These are going to be YOUR doctors, YOUR teachers and you’re basically spitting on them. You’re as disgusting as you make illegals out to be.
eh0928 - December 12, 2010 at 11:26 pm
And also, letting them work legally means they will pay taxes. There are millions of immigrants, and their taxes will generate millions of dollars. You don’t like them, fine. But don’t blame them for the economy, if anything, letting them work legally would boost the economy.
jones41 - June 28, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Fantastic. Great work, Michael (from an old SFA buddy).
rmelton5 - June 29, 2011 at 5:43 pm
It may be very good that an entire journal (thankfully, an annual, not a quarterly) is devoted to Marlowe. But it’s not so good that the editors/publishers have decided to use the same old pricing model–to double the price for institutions. Libraries actually support journals like this by providing the content that the scholars cite in their new articles and itemize in their bibliographies. Then, the scholar-publishers turn around and sell their content back to the institutions that support them, almost always without any fee. An opportunity has been lost–this journal could easily have been mounted on the existing Marlowe website and made Open Access, rather than creating yet another financial demand on the libraries that play such a crucial role in supporting the product (content) of the journal.
FrancisHamit - July 5, 2011 at 11:59 am
Well, I find this timely. We are about to publish the first draft screenplay of my 1988 stage play “MARLOWE: An Elizabethan Tragedy” as a trade paperback book and the original play, which was produced by the Shakespeare Society of America, is available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook. The late Thad Taylor, founder of SSA, thought that I had solved the mystery of Marlowe’s death, i.e. that he was done in by his fellow secret service agents for reasons of state. If they “biographical fact” is that he was a spy, well that’s been known and documented for quite some time. We are in pre-production for a film based on my play. Michael Donahue will direct. We’re still looking at casting options. So I look forward to this new journal.