Congress, don’t crush the dream – pass a clean DREAM Act

Since 2012, we have watched hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants brought here as children gain new confidence to pursue their aspirations, their educations and their careers thanks to the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

In the past month, we have watched those same young people being thrown into a hell of uncertainty and fear as the Trump administration effectively ended DACA, announcing a six-month phase out while challenging Congress to come up with a legislative solution.

These are the students who were famously “brought here through no fault of their own” often years or even decades ago. Just weeks ago, they were busy becoming the architects of their future. Now, they are once again merely victims of political forces beyond their control.

A country built by generations of immigrants who arrived seeking only a chance to prosper is denying that chance to this latest generation. Unless, that is, Congress passes a clean DREAM Act, with no immigration enforcement conditions or poison pills.

Weeks before this administration announced the end of DACA, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced the bipartisan DREAM Act in the Senate. Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) soon followed with their version – first introduced 16 years ago – in the House.

The DREAM Act offers undocumented youth who arrived in the United States before their 18th birthday a chance for permanent legal status, as long as they meet residency and security requirements and fulfill military, educational or work conditions. If they clear these obstacles, they earn residency after eight years and, presumably, citizenship after 13. Because they were already fulfilling some of these requirements, DACA recipients get fast-tracked.

This legislation represents an opportunity to do right by these students and to return to the ideal expressed by our national narrative – that everyone, no matter their station in life, gets a chance to succeed.

But Republican Congressional leaders are playing games, turning these students into bargaining chips to win more enforcement measures for a border that is already a no-man’s land of sensors, barriers and militarized patrols.

Before Obama implemented DACA by executive order, he tried without success to encourage Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Now, with Trump prodding them, Republicans are trying to neutralize the DREAM Act by introducing their own alternative, the so-called SUCCEED Act. It imposes a much longer waiting period, granting no permanent status until after 15 years while imposing tougher education and employment or military service rules. A five-year wait for citizenship would then follow, making this a 20-year process.

For years, in poll after poll, Americans have supported a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Today they overwhelmingly support citizenship for DACA students. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released late last month showed 86 percent of Americans support residency for undocumented people brought here as children. The support crosses ideological and ethnic lines – three-quarters of Republicans and conservatives, 86 percent of independents and 87 percent of moderates expressed support, as well as 97 percent of Democrats and 96 percent of liberals. Also, 94 percent of Latinos, 93 percent of Blacks and 84 percent of whites said yes to these young people.

These are not figures to dismiss lightly.

The students whose futures hang on the fate of the DREAM Act have no other options for legal status; there is no line for them to go to the end of.

While in the DACA program, they followed the rules, submitting to background checks, enrolling in school and finding work, paying steep fees every two years to renew their status and paying taxes on what they earned. These young immigrants truly are American dreamers, like their immigrant parents and many others looking for a chance to be full, participating members of society.

Passing a clean DREAM Act is giving them the same chance our parents and grandparents had. If we really are who we profess to be, we owe them this much.

This story was originally published October 4, 2017 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Congress, don’t crush the dream – pass a clean DREAM Act."