The first of the California Dream Act bills could become law next year.
by Brian Leubitz
With the Legislature in recess, the days until August 15, when the Legislature comes back and the redistricting commission is due to return its final maps, are focused on looking at the Governor's signings and vetoes. And, of course, lots of dog and pony shows for the media, as Legislators attempt to get some attention for their legislation.
One item that is of particular note is the first, perhaps more modest part, of the California Dream Act. AB 130 wouldn't cost the state money, but it could enable some "Dreamers" to afford an education:
One of two bills referred to as the California Dream Act was approved today by the state senate and is headed to Gov. Jerry Brown's office for approval. Known as AB 130, the measure would allow undocumented college students access to privately funded financial aid in the form of scholarships and other assistance as overseen by state colleges and universities. (SCPR)
Currently, immigrants who attended at least three years at California high schools and graduated from a California high school pay in-state tuition. This legislation would simply make these same students eligible for private aid.
Brown has previously said he supported the California Dream Act, and one would hope that would mean a quick signing of AB 130. But one thing that I've learned from watching this process for many years is that nothing is certain. You can contact Governor Brown to let him know you support AB 130 and help speed up the process.
If you've been to any of the California Democratic Party conventions recently, or if you've otherwise had the chance to speak to some of the students that happen to be undocumented, you'll know how important the Dream Act is. And so, yesterday, when it passed its first major hurdle along the road to the Governor's desk, there was reason to smile:
Illegal immigrants could receive college financial aid under legislation approved Thursday by the Assembly and apparently destined for the desk of a new Democratic governor who supports the concept. ...
AB 130, among other things, would allow a small segment of illegal immigrants - those who currently qualify for in-state college tuition - to apply for aid from private gifts or endowments that totaled more than $72 million last year.
Assemblyman Gil Cedillo proposed both AB 130 and a pending companion measure - AB 131 - that would open the financial door wider by allowing those illegal immigrants to seek Cal Grants and other public aid.(SacBee)
The governor has said in the past that he supports the concept of the California Dream Act, but hasn't committed to the specifics of these measures. However, considering that the first of these bills, AB 130, doesn't even touch public money, it seems to be a no-brainer. CalGrants might be a different matter, but only time (or Jerry) will tell on that one.
These students, who were brought here when they were young, and then succeeded in schools, are what this country should be about. It is about people coming to America to work hard to build our economy. We shouldn't just be kicking these students out of our country, we should be helping them stay here. The California Dream Act is a good first start on that.
Let's face it, getting legislation passed benefiting the immigrant community is challenging. And with our previous governor, it was all the more difficult. But the times have changed at the Horseshoe, and Asm. Gil Cedillo isn't giving up on his efforts.
Cedillo's bills would apply to undocumented immigrants who have attended California high schools, adult schools or technical schools for three years or more, graduated or attained an equivalent degree from them, and filed an application to legalize their status.
The two bills, Assembly Bills 130 and 131, would benefit the "best and brightest" of undocumented immigrants, who came to the United States as children through no choice of their own and embraced the English language and culture -- and performed well in state schools, Cedillo said.(SacBee)
Given the demographic shifts of California, we are going to need all the well-educated workers that we can get. That is where our economy is moving, and we just can't be turning away hard-working and successful young students because their parents did something wrong when they were children.
Certainly we can all agree that we need to work to improve the Latin American economy so that we can reduce the number of undocumented immigrants. However, at the same time, we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. If we have educated workers here, now, let's put them to work in growing our economy.
On September 15, 2010, life as Shing Ma "Steve" Li knew it ended suddenly. On that warm summer morning about a month and half ago, two men knocked on the door of his San Francisco apartment. Inside, 20-year-old Steve was getting ready for a full day of classes at the City College of San Francisco. He could not have imagined that within the next couple hours he would be arrested and detained as a fugitive criminal. In the ensuing two days, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) processed Steve and his mother and sent them to their detention facility in Sacramento. Several weeks later, he was moved to the ICE detention center in Florence, Arizona, where he now awaits deportation.
Steve had no idea of his family's status. Though he was born in Lima, Peru on July 3, 1990, Steve grew up right here in San Francisco. He attended Francisco Middle School and graduated from George Washington High School in 2008. Of ethnic Chinese dissent, Steve's family arrived in San Francisco in 2002 after escaping from hardships in Peru. His parents came to America hoping for a fresh start. Steve was currently enrolled at the City College of San Francisco and was preparing to transfer to San Francisco State University where he planned on studying to become a nurse.
Sadly, Steve could have been spared this awful situation if Congress had passed the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, also known as the DREAM Act. This bill provides relief for certain inadmissible or deportable alien students who arrived in the U.S. as children, who graduate from US high schools, who are of good moral character, and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment. Qualifying students have the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or two years of schooling at a four-year institution of higher learning.
The DREAM Act will get another vote later this year, as an amendment to the National Defense Reauthorization Act. The DREAM Act has bipartisan co-sponsors, and majority of the Senate has voted for it in the past. We hope and pray that Congress will pass the DREAM Act this year.
I was Steve's professor at City College of San Francisco, and along with Steve's other teachers and friends, we are writing to everyone we know to publicize Steve's unjust detention, to educate people about the DREAM Act, and to try to forestall Steve's deportation in the hope that the DREAM Act will be passed through Congress this year.
The San Gabriel Valley is a unique area. Within 5 minutes of Gil Cedillo's campaign kickoff for Congress yesterday in El Monte, I visited a 200 year-old Spanish mission, and a Pho shop in Alhambra where I was the only guy in there who didn't speak Cantonese. This is a series of highly homogeneous communities, which doesn't have the same media, doesn't have the same leadership, and doesn't even speak the same language.
However, it's a demographic reality that the district is over 60% Latino while being about 18% Asian. This is an urban, middle-class Hispanic district. And while Gil Cedillo doesn't represent it in the State Senate, he drew a lot of support to his initial campaign event yesterday. Close to 400 people packed a storefront in El Monte to get started on the campaign. Before there's even a date set for the primary election (though everyone assumes it will be folded into the May 19 special election), yesterday Cedillo supporters were out canvassing the district.
But first, there were a series of speeches and endorsements. Cedillo will have the backing of the Latino political establishment in the area. The big news yesterday was that Rep. Xavier Becerra, of the neighboring district of CA-31, was out to endorse. He joins the local county supervisor Gloria Molina, the local city councilman Ed Reyes (a small part of the district includes LA City), former Rep. Esteban Torres, and several other councilmembers and local politicos in giving their endorsement to Cedillo. Molina even intimated that Congressional Hispanic Caucus support would be coming. There was some not-all-that-subtle rhetoric about "our community" and "our people." It's clear that this is a replay of the CA-37 special election, where Laura Richardson pushed an African-American/Hispanic divide. With Cedillo's main competition being Judy Chu, there's definitely going to be some of that Hispanic/Asian divide in this race, though I imagine it will be more respectful that Richardson's toxicity.
What complicates this is that Chu received the Cal Labor Fed endorsement and actually has support from a few Latino lawmakers of her own. Cedillo was sure to tout his 100% labor scorecard in his short address. In the rest, he talked about a campaign of faith and hope, strength and leadership. He called the San Gabriel Valley "a slice of America," where families come to buy a home, raise children, and get an education. And he talked about the need to make the economy work for those families, with a particular emphasis on health care (he mentioned how great it would be to build a hospital with the stimulus money - even though I'm pretty sure that won't be something the stimulus can do). Cedillo is at his best when talking about immigration. His tireless support for the California version of the DREAM Act, to allow undocumented students to attend college and be eligible for financial aid, has earned him a sterling reputation among young people, many of whom were there volunteering yesterday.
I don't know how many of those young people are eligible to vote, however, and in particular, eligible in that district. Cedillo will have no shortage of volunteers, but he doesn't completely have a voting base inside the district, having never represented it. Outside of Molina, the endorsees are not by and large from the population centers of the district, either. The other factor in this race is Emanuel Pleitez, who liveblogged at FDL yesterday. He is a local, with a small but strong group of former Obama organizers working with him. If you look at this strictly on the level of identity politics, having Pleitez in the race probably helps Judy Chu a bit. The big question, of course, is who is going to turn out their voters.
Technically, the session is over in Sacramento, but of course, with no budget, the work will go on. More on that in a moment, but let's take a look at the bills that have passed thus far.
Hundreds of bills passed through their respective houses and made their way to the Governor's desk. Among those passing:
• AB 1945, which cracks down on insurance company rescission policies
• SB 1301, the California DREAM Act, allowing children of illegal immigrants to access financial aid for college
• SB 375, a major land use bill that would improve transportation planning and reduce urban sprawl (this is a real coup)
• AB 583, the Clean Money pilot project bill that would make the 2014 Secretary of State election a Clean Money race.
UPDATE: More bill passage from the indispensable Frank Russo:
• AB 1830 (Lieu): This is the good version of the subprime mortgage bill that passed in a weaker state earlier this year.
• AB 180 (Bass): Another mortgage bill that seeks to go after predatory lenders and "foreclosure consultants."
• SB 1440 (Kuehl): This is a big one. It sets a minimum requirement that insurers spend at least 85% of their premiums on health care.
• SB 840 (Kuehl): The single-payer bill, which will be promptly vetoed by the Governor, sadly.
• A couple toxic chemicals bills: AB 1879 and SB 509.
• AB 2939 (Hancock): Allowing cities and counties to implement stricter green building guidelines than state law, which are already tightening through SB 375.
Among the bills that failed:
• SB 1522, a health care reform bill which would have standardized the individual health care market and made it easier to comparison shop, as well as set a floor for basic minimum care. That those who most strongly pushed for comprehensive health reform would fail to pass this common-sense fix makes no sense to me.
• SB 110, which would have created an independent sentencing commission to review and revised sentencing guidelines and parole standards. Another failure of leadership in our prison crisis, as lawmakers refuse to loosen their grip on the rules which they've abused and led to this disaster.
As for the budget, now the legislature, out of session by constitutional mandate, must work on nothing else. Sen. Perata has called the bluff on the Republicans, asking them to formally submit their unspeakably cruel budget plan so that the whole state can see their priorities for what they are.
There was a strange colloquy near the end of yesterday's Senate session (Republican Senator Jim Battin is pictured at right), where the Republicans were clearly caught flatfooted, flustered in their responses like school kids admonished for not doing their homework, and having a hard time coming to grips with what Perata told them. This is a reprise of what Perata did last year when Senate Republicans held the budget up and when he asked them to come up with their own proposal.
Perata: Right now, the bill that I brought up yesterday is kind of an orphan. You have your opportunity to present a bill that you outlined today in your press conference. I appreciate the fact that there is a substantial amount of work to be done on that bill. We know, because we started ours 8 months ago. So you've got a lot of work to do. But we're very confident you can do it. Every day we will be here to see how we're doing [...]
Republican Senator Jim Battin: I just want to make sure I understand what your expectations are. So what you want from our caucus is a full budget document, is that correct?
Perata: Yeah. A budget.
Battin: And every day we are preparing that, you want to meet.
Perata: Yeah. You know what I don't' want to do is to be caught in that position where people are getting confused whey we don't have a budget. Now every day we meet, we can say, "you're working on it."
Battin: And you also want to have the trailer bills as well?
Perata: Yeah. A budget.
Battin: You would actually allow us to bring it up for a vote on the floor?
Perata: You betcha.
Battin: So my expectation is that it will fail...And then what?
Perata: Let's not prejudge. You may come up with a piece of work that will knock our socks off. So let's see what you will do.
It's a neat trick, and good for political purposes. I don't know how it gets us closer to a budget. Schwarzenegger still wants the sales tax hike, Yacht Party Republicans are still dead-set against it, and Democrats are trying to compromise and on the edge of cracking. But they seem to believe, this time around, that the budget can be blamed on Republicans in November and there's a benefit in campaigning on the issue (I think that's why Perata wants a real plan).
So nobody knows how this ends. And the victims are the public employees, the long-term care workers, the schools, the health clinics, the everyday Californians that did nothing wrong and don't deserve this anxiety.
In an unanticipated flip flop (this one in particular, not the flipping in general) this past weekend while in San Diego addressing the National Council of La Raza, John McCain signaled his unequivocal support for the DREAM Act:
Q: "Will you support humanity all across the world and support The DREAM Act that we are trying to pass?"
A: "Yes. Yes, but I will also enforce the existing laws. That's why we must secure the border..."
McCain was a sponsor of the DREAM Act in 2003, 2005 and 2007, but NOW in 2007:
McCain Skipped Vote On DREAM Act But Said He Would Have Voted Against Bill That He Co-Sponsored. "Last week, McCain skipped a Senate vote on immigration legislation called the DREAM Act - Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors. He then said he would have voted against the bill, even though he was a co-sponsor." [Myrtle Beach Sun-News, 11/2/07 ]
This is remarkable on its face and is a clear attempt to pull Latino voters to McCain and make California competitive, but it doesn't exactly jive with the spin that was being pushed around yesterday after Obama's luncheon speech.
The real absurdity of McCain's strategy, at least with regard to reaching Latino voters in California, was on full display Sunday following Obama's La Raza speech, and it basically boiled down to telling Latinos that the elected Latinos throughout the state are failures. Hector Barajas, Director of Communications for the California GOP ticked off the list of Democratic boogeymen: Antonio Villaraigosa, Fabian Nunez, Gil Cedillo. Not just three of the most visible Latino politicians in the state, but ones that are noteworthy for championing Latino causes. Heck, Cedillo sponsored the DREAM Act that McCain now supports.
Brave New Foundation (disclaimer: my employer) just released this new video featuring students who grew up in the U.S., worked their way through high school and earned the merits to attend college, but now face legal and financial barriers to enrolling due solely to their immigration status. The DREAM Act, which died in Congress in 2006 along with immigration reform as a whole, would have removed the federal provision that prevents states from allowing undocumented students who grew up here in America to qualify for in-state tuition, and would have provided a path to legal status for these future doctors, teachers, scientists and engineers. The California DREAM Act, vetoed last year by the Governor, would have allowed undocumented students who grew up here in California to be treated like any other student when they applied for financial aid for college.
These bills aimed to rationalize our nation's hamstrung immigration policies and to help bolster an eroding pool of skilled and educated workers in America. Their demise spelled a huge missed opportunity for California and for the country.
Big thanks to Senator Cedillo for taking a stand on this critical issue, and for a career of fighting for more humane and sensible immigration policies. Let's hope to see the DREAM Act reintroduced in Sacramento and in Washington in the near future.
Brian Bilbray really likes to grandstand on immigration. Heck, he was a lobbyist for an anti-immigration group. And last year, along with Bush Dog Heath Shuler, he introduced HR 4088. A quick take on HR 4088 from NDN:
Unfortunately, H.R. 4088 is not a solution or even a stop-gap measure. If enacted, it would simply make a bad situation worse, providing a windfall to bad employers by making workers more exploitable, pushing them deeper underground and off the tax rolls. It would harm U.S. workers displaced by the flawed employment verification program, and waste even more U.S. tax dollars trying to detain and deport peaceful workers instead of focusing in on those who mean us harm.
Well, I bring this up because today the San Diego U-T has an article about how the decrease in cross-border traffic has hurt the economy of the border region:
The number of people crossing into the United States at San Ysidro has fallen 21.4 percent from a peak three years ago, a precipitous drop that economists and others attribute to frustrating border waits, dwindling tourism and a struggling U.S. economy.
***
"Between the border wait time and security issues, it is killing us," said Jason Wells, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce in San Ysidro, where an estimated 85 percent of the retail customer base consists of shoppers who cross from Mexico. "We've lost the casual crosser, the casual shopper, the casual tourist. The only crossers we have left are forced crossers, people that because of family or work have to cross."
But for so-called leaders like Bilbray, the politics is more important that the policy. And what does he care anyway, right? His donors aren't border crossers, and likely don't depend on the traffic for their livelihood. But the fact of the matter is that the increased scrutiny to cross the border hurts California's economy. Wait times easily exceed two hours, and in the end, crossing the border to save a bit of money or for higher quality products just isn't worth it.
Somehow we need to get past Bilbray-esque demagoguery, and try to find solutions that are based on sound policy, rather than fear-based politics.
By the by, one such solution, a new form of the Dream Act, was recently reintroduced to the state Senate by Gil Cedillo.
As mentioned by Brian, the federal version of the DREAM Act is up for a vote today. The bill would set on a path to legal status those children of immigrants who enlist in the military or enroll in college. Yesterday, college students who would benefit from this program were on Capitol Hill, lobbying Congress for passage. Tom Tancredo, noted jerk, called for the arrest of the students.
Democrats were planning to hold a press conference today featuring three college students whose parents came to the United States illegally in order to promote the DREAM Act. But the event was postponed after anti-immigrant Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) called on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to arrest the three students:
"I call on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to detain any illegal aliens at this press conference," said Tancredo, who claims to have alerted federal authorities about the well publicized press confrence. "Just because these illegal aliens are being used for political gain doesn't mean they get immunity from the law. If we can't enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?"
They eventually held the press conference anyway and nobody was arrested. Tancredo is not only being callous here, he's being ignorant. One of the students has permanent residency status, and another cannot be deported because she exists in a kind of legal limbo. Her name is Tam Tran.
Tam Tran, whose Vietnamese parents came illegally to the US from Germany, has lived in the US since she was ten, is a UCLA graduate who wants to pursue a PhD at USC, but can't because she can't afford further schooling without federal student loans. The government can't deport her family back to Vietnam because her father was persecuted by the communist government there, but the German government won't take them back either. Tran said today she is in "permanent legal limbo."
The last time Tran spoke out in support of the DREAM Act, in an article in USA Today on October 8, her family was detained by the ICE.
Just three days after the article appeared, federal officers entered her home in the middle of the night and forcibly arrested her family. Tran's family was detained on a "years-old deportation order," even though they have been in regular communication with immigration officials for almost 20 years since arriving in the United States.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), chair of the immigration subcommitee, equated the family's arrest to "witness intimidation" and accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials of targeting the Tran family because Tam "testified before Lofgren's panel earlier this spring." Earlier this week, USA Today spoke with Lofgren about the Tran family's arrest:
"Would she and her family have been arrested if she hadn't spoken out?" Lofgren said of Tran, who was not at home for the raid but has been asked to report to Immigration and Customs officials next week. "I don't think so."
This is shocking behavior for the ICE to undertake, and not only does it show the price for dissent in Bush's America, but it shows how convoluted our immigration system is in the absence of a comprehensive solution. You can punish immigrants, who have no political power, or you can punish companies who hire the undocumented, who have loads of political power. In this case, the solution is clear; allow students who have known no other home to contribute to the country in which they were raised. Brian has the numbers; light 'em up.
The DREAM Act comes up for a vote in the Senate today, and while our two Senators support it, it will be a close call. Its Republican sponsors, Sens. Hagel and Lugar, will need to twist enough arms to reach the 60 vote threshold necessary for cloture. Over at California Progress Report, Peter Schrag wonders why Governor Schwarzenegger has been so silent about the federal version of an Act he vetoed recently based upon the $2million of "budget impacts."
If that need is so great, why aren't Schwarzenegger et al. also demanding passage of the Dream Act? Repeated queries to the governor's office produced a blank. Worse, despite the thousands of students who've been petitioning Congress, no one in the governor's office seems to know what the Dream Act is.
If you need more reason why we need this bill, check this post out on the importance of education to these students. The Governor needs to make a statement, and so do we. Over the flip, we have a list of Senators that need so talking to, courtesy of Migra Matters. If you have friends in those states, please have them call their Senators immediately!.
There's obviously been a lot of discussion about this, but I thought the Senator that wrote the bill would be someone to listen to about this. From an emailed press release:
Despite stringent cost containment amendments and support from all three segments of California public higher education, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed Sen. Gilbert Cedillo's California Dream Act (SB 1) Saturday. The proposal would have enabled qualifying undocumented students to apply for two types of non- competitive state financial aid, the Cal Grant High School Entitlement Grant and community college fee waivers. In his veto message Schwarzenegger indicated extending aid to the students was an imprudent strain on the General Fund although estimates pegged new budget allocations under SB 1 at $1.9 million or .018% of General Fund monies.
"He's a tough guy to pin down, we addressed every fiscal concern the administration had, but maybe it's more of a political calculation for him. The need for this bill extends beyond the walls of my office and although the Governor and I may disagree, this is one area where I think business sense should prevail." [...]
"Despite support from the entire public higher education system, some of his own appointees to the Regents, the Governor has vetoed a landmark education bill. In the face of non-partisan research and business community support to secure the workforce of tomorrow, the Governor deems a one hundredth of one percent cost increase more dire than facing a shortage of skilled labor in our state," said Cedillo. "While these students work hard to obtain the American dream, to contribute to our state, the Governor seems to look the other way."
The bill was the result of some serious compromise with the Governor's office, and he vetoed it anyway.
I saw Bill Maher on Friday in an interview with former Mexican President Vicente Fox, lamenting that Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn't be able to face off as Presidential candidates due to Constitutional violations. "Isn't that sad," he said. For all his conceits as a free thinker, Maher represents a kind of baseline Hollywood groupthink when it comes to Arnold, reading the headlines and the magazine covers but never bothering to uncover the whole story. That story can be easily divined from this weekend's veto massacre. In addition to stopping the California DREAM Act, he vetoed needed legislation for the state's migrant farm workers, allowing them to organize through a "card check" system. He even disabled a bill that would have added a sunset clause to the card check system, making it ever harder for them to organize and support themselves and their families. Here's another bill that went down the drain:
The Governor vetoed SB1, legislation which would have allowed students who are children of undocumented immigrants to apply for financial aid and have the same opportunity at contributing to the American dream as their counterparts. These are young men and women who did not make the decision to come to this country, yet represent out best hope to continue as a strong nation by contributing to our economy and our historic diversity. They consider themselves Americans and Californians and wish to use their talents and skills to benefit this country and this state. The Governor said no.
And get this, he blamed it on the high cost of college (yeah, who's responsible for THAT?).
At a time when segments of California public higher education, the Universirt of California and the California State University, are raising fees on all students attending college in order to maintain the quality of education provided, it would not be prudent to place additional strain on the General Fund to accord the new benefit of providing state subsidized financial aid to students without lawful immigration status.
That expense will pay itself back 10 times over in the future. But now the dream of a college education for these students becomes ever more remote. This used to be a different kind of country.
A few quick points. First, on October 21, the San Mateo County Dem. Party is conducting a straw poll fundraiser. Rep. Kucinich will be there, as well as Sen. Speier for Hillary, Sen. Yee for Sen Edwards, and Steve Westly for Sen. Obama.
Also, please call the Governor to voice support for the California DREAM Act RIGHT NOW! He must sign/veto it by tomorrow. Call 916-445-2841, and then press 1(for english), 5 for Senate bills, 6 for SB 1, the California Dream Act, and then 1 to support.
(The Dream Act picked up another endorsement today, the LA Times. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
There is a very important bill sitting on Gov. Schwarzenegger's desk -- one that is exemplary of the society we want to create. Do we want a society where it's every man for himself, or do we want one that recognizes our shared humanity, and helps open up opportunity for everyone? The DREAM Act can be made law in California if the Governor signs it by Oct. 14. A student leader coalition is being supported by a broad cross-section of community, faith and labor groups, urging the Gov. to do the right thing. A low-tech letter-writing campaign has been going on for a month, but thanks to our friends at the Courage Campaign there is now an online petition. Please add your name, but don't stop there -- help us spread the word:
The San Francisco-based Fog City Journal, which is usually a source of decent progressive news, ran a shockingly right-wing column today about the federal DREAM Act and Barack Obama's support of it.
When I first saw the headline, "Senator Obama, Say it isn't so," I thought it was going to be a criticism of Obama from the Left -- as there has been some of that lately on progressive websites. But it soon becomes clear that this writer has a warped view of what Democrats should and shouldn't support:
I was asked by a friend to call Illinois Senator Dick Durbin to voice my displeasure over his support for this DREAM Act, which is indeed a bad dream for many Americans. It aims to eliminate the federal provision that discourages states from providing in-state tuition without regard to immigration status. However, it offers no such discount to those American kids who are even poorer, or more disadvantaged than the illegal immigrants this bill wants to help.
After three attempts to get through to Senator Durbin's office, the Capitol operator offered to connect me with the "other Illinois senator." That's how I came to have a shouting match with one of Senator Obama's senior aides when he told me that his boss also supports this bill.
Senator Obama, how could you? Are you reaching out to a constituency who is not even part of our citizenry? Are you caving in to special interests? Are you trying to be all things to all people?
I don't think that many Californians will disagree with this statement: University Education is Critical to the Future of California and Californians. And, while many may not like it, this state is a state of immigrants. We are all from somewhere else (well, with the exception of the state's Native-Americans) and are working to move our state forward. Put those two statements together, and you'll see why the California Dream Act is so important.
What would you do if your American dream had to be deferred? And how would you respond when you find out that your dream must be deferred because of nine digits? Yep, nine digits would be separating you from your plans, your hopes, your wishes, your future. Doesn't that seem unfair?
Well, it is. It's quite unfair for all the young people to work so hard to go to college, yet can't access any financial aid because they are undocumented immigrants. And even if they can somehow make it through college, they can't get a job because they don't have those nine little digits. Even though they came here as children, and even though they only remember living here, they are punished for something they had no control over.
So what can be done about this injustice? Follow me after the flip for more...
(Nice to have the Senator here. Now go do as he says! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Recently the Los Angeles Times ran an editorial, “For Citizens Only,” on the California Dream Act (SB 160) which misrepresented facts and promoted a policy position out of step with reality and mainstream opinion in California.
Just one week after the LA Times declared their objection to increasing access to higher education for all Californians, the California Public Policy Institute (PPIC) issued a definitive analysis citing a critical gap in the number of college grads the state will produce. PPIC warned that California will not meet the economic demand for highly skilled workers with current immigration and graduation rates; they recommended swift action on the state’s behalf to intervene. Additionally, a Field Poll in April 2007 noted that 83% of Californians support creating programs to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants indicating a far more open attitude toward immigrants than the LA Times expressed in their editorial.
The California Dream Act is an appropriate step to address our state’s workforce needs and is in alignment with voter sentiments toward immigrants. As the paper of note in California’s largest immigrant city, we expect more from the Los Angeles Times.
Please help us express our dissatisfaction with the paper’s position and presentation of facts. It is critical that we set the record straight on SB 160 and make the paperaware of our concerns.
