Good kids are counting on Dream Act

This puts a human face on the immigration conundrum. It's a story that supports passage of the DREAM Act that is currently being considered in Congress' discussion on immigration. -Angela

Good kids are counting on Dream Act
But path to college is tied up in immigration reform

08:34 AM CDT on Friday, July 7, 2006

This week, House and Senate committees have embarked on a nationwide tour to listen to people who have a stake in immigration policy. Casting all cynicism aside, let's say these public hearings have nothing to do with midterm elections and everything to do with an honest desire to untangle our immigration mess.

If that's the case, then I think these leaders need to hear from Carla, a bright, ambitious 17-year-old Dallas student who will be directly affected by whatever they decide. This is what she'd tell them:

After watching her mother clean other people's bathrooms for 14 years, she wants something more for her life. She's worked hard, and she's now poised to graduate from high school in the top 10 percent of her class. She wants to go to a good college, but she can't – unless Congress acts.

Because Carla (who asked that her last name not be used) is in this country illegally, she doesn't qualify for most financial aid. Even if she manages to work her way through school with a low-paying job – the only kind available to her – without legal status, she would be blocked from pursuing her profession.

Her only hope is an amendment, known as the Dream Act, tacked onto the controversial immigration legislation now stalled out in Congress. The amendment would give the estimated 65,000 undocumented high school seniors who graduate annually the legal status to qualify for college financial aid and put them on a path to citizenship.

If there is anyone to make a case for the Dream Act, it's Carla. Even as her mother tells her to give up her dream, Carla keeps studying. This summer, she's taking a year's worth of pre-calculus so that she'll be able to take Advanced Placement calculus this fall.

In some ways, she says, being here illegally "made me want to be better, and to show them that I'm not here to waste my time."

Carla, her mother and two older siblings left Chihuahua in 1992 after her father abandoned them. They came to Dallas on a visa to visit family and never left.

"I know it's not my fault that I'm here, but I'm not blaming my single mother for trying to pursue a better life, either," she says. "I was only 3 when I came here. I can't go back to Mexico; I can barely speak Spanish."

Federal law mandates equal access to education for elementary and secondary education, no matter the child's legal status. Denying the good students a route to higher education is not only cruel, but also wasteful. By some estimates, $200,000 in taxpayer money will be spent on Carla's education by the time she graduates in May 2007.

"If we allow these roadblocks to higher education to persist," says Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a co-sponsor of the Dream Act, "we ultimately hurt our nation because we deprive ourselves of future leaders and the increased tax revenues and economic growth they would produce."

Carla wants to enroll at the University of Texas at Austin. She loves math and wants to become an accountant. Someday, she says, she'd also like to open a center that helps single mothers, like her own, learn English, find resources and help kids like her find scholarships. She says she was counting on the Dream Act to pass this year. It's been making its way through Congress since 2004, and last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed it, 16-3, with overwhelming bipartisan support. With the best of intentions, though, the legislation was attached to the larger immigration package – and then it got swallowed up in the contentious debate.

Some people may think the Dream Act sounds like a free pass, a reward to people who've broken the law. But the legislation is written to encourage the young people with the most promise, like Carla. At the time of application, they must have earned their high school diploma or GED, be accepted to a two- or four-year college, have no criminal record and exhibit good moral character.

If the immigration reform legislation tanks, Carla fears her life won't be much better than her mother's. "I don't want to be cleaning other people's houses," she says. "That's not what I dream of. I want a piece of the American dream."


Macarena Hernández is a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist. Her e-mail address is mhernandez@dallasnews.com.

Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/all/stories/DN-hernandez_07edi.ART.State.Edition1.245f1a8.html