Cornyn should hang his head on illegal-alien education vote

By MASSEY VILLARREAL

Special to the Star-Telegram

One of the most pressing issues facing our nation today is fixing our deeply flawed immigration system. This is particularly true in border states such as Texas.

But earlier this year, Congress failed to take action to reform this system. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was central to that failure. And he was central to the recent failure to pass the common-sense DREAM Act, which he had supported in the past in a much broader version. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, sought to amend that legislation and worked hard to perfect it.

The one tried and true path to achieve the American Dream is a quality education, and even though efforts to enact comprehensive immigration reform fell short this year, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the DREAM Act last month. The legislation would have provided hard-working immigrant children who pursue higher education or volunteer for military service with an avenue to win legal status by proving their character.

In the U.S. today, there are students who have lived practically their entire lives in this country; they've gone to high school here, they've worked hard to succeed and have talent that our economy and armed forces need.

Whatever one thinks about the immigration issue, these children typically were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were too young to understand the manner of their arrival, let alone have any control over the decision. A majority of these kids know no other country as their home and speak no language but our own.

Sadly, Cornyn makes it a policy to demand that Hispanic children from Texas prove their legal status before allowing them to meet with him in Washington.

By caving in to the fears of a vocal minority, Cornyn and many of his colleagues turned their backs on thousands of kids living and striving in our communities. He thumbed his nose at the Texas Legislature (which created a state version of the act in 2001) and Gov. Rick Perry (who signed it). They recognized the return on investment to our state from allowing these kids to reach their potential and contribute fully to our economy.

Texans know better, and that is why our state has refused to buy into fear-mongering and political scapegoating of hard-working immigrants of good character.

Cornyn might talk a good game, but his actions speak louder than his hollow words. There is no excuse for voting against such a narrowly crafted piece of legislation as the DREAM Act, particularly when the senior senator from our state stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate asking for his vote and promising a tough bill that would satisfy both sides of the debate.

The writing is on the wall where Cornyn is concerned. He has joined the ranks of the know-nothing, do-nothing obstructionists who refuse to deal with the immigration issue in a manner that will lead to responsible and practical reform.

This issue won't go away on its own, and it isn't reasonable to pass the buck to state and local governments. There are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and without sensible reform, the situation will only get worse.

The American public is fed up with politicians like Cornyn who fail to act. In the absence of any immigration reform, local tensions will simmer, public frustration will mount, and we will be no closer to providing the security, enforcement and accountability the American people demand.

Massey Villarreal is the former national chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly and a board member of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

published in the star-telegram.com 11/05/07

DREAM Act not a reality

By: Jana Kasperkevic

Posted: 11/5/07

On Wednesday, Oct. 24, just days after Baruch students discussed the possibilities offered by Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) during the advocacy workshop, "Struggling to Learn, Educando con Restricciones," the Senate struck down the DREAM Act with a vote of 52-44. Sen. Richard J. Durbin, five-year-long sponsor of the act, called the bill's failure a "sad and troubling moment in [the American history]."

In March 2006, Walter Barrientos wrote for The Ticker that, "In CUNY alone, which has a long history of providing higher education to immigrant families, there are officially 3,000 undocumented students who are education themselves with the hope of one day being able to work."

The DREAM Act will allow the illegal students at Baruch College to put their education to proper use at a legal job after graduation and provide them with an opportunity to advance their careers and lead a life without a constant fear of being deported.

The act would have applied to students who had lived in United States for at least five years before its enactment, had entered U.S. before age 16, had graduated from high school or equivalent, had no criminal record as well as those who have completed two years of college or served in the military for two years. Many students who fulfill these criteria live in New York will attend CUNY in the future because of its accessibility.

The act did have bipartisan support, 11 Republicans voted in its favor. However, with immigration being an important issue in the upcoming presidential election, it is difficult for the presidential candidates to vote on such acts without it having serious consequences on their campaign. Presidential candidates Sens. Chris Dodd and John McCain did not vote and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted in favor of opening the bill up for debate.

"The problem is the public is scared and kind of in shock," argued Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, "And members of Congress want to get re-elected and they don't think they can if they go too far on this issue." Others like Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, proposed amendments to make the act acceptable. Hutchinson proposed replacing the path to citizenship with a five-year student visa and renewable work visa.

Members of Congress and the White House fault the Act for creating a path to citizenship that is not available to other immigrants. The Washington Times reported that "in an official statement of policy the White House made clear [President George W.] Bush has a number of problems with the bill, including creating a 'special class of illegal aliens' and offering a perpetual amnesty, rather than a one-time forgiveness." Yet, the threat of a veto never came from the White House.

"It is our duty to promote respect for America's immigration laws and fairness for U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants," stated Minority Leader Mitch McConnell before the vote. "Though I recognize and appreciate the tremendous contributions to our country made by generations of legal immigrants, I do not believe we should reward illegal behavior."

Those in favor of the act argue that the children should not be punished for their parents' decisions. "The parent's immigration is a barrier to the children's education," said Juan Adorno, sophomore, on Thursday, Oct. 18.

"I don't know what the chance will be," stated Sen. Durbin, referring to the chances of the DREAM Act passage in the years to come. Many believe that the act will not be able to pass until well after the elections when the members of Congress are more comfortable with voting on such issues. "But this is an idea whose time will come because it is an idea based on justice and fairness. To think that these young people would see their lives ruined because their parents […] brought them to this country."

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© Copyright 2007 Ticker

Lessons of the Dream Act defeat

Senate vote reveals staying power of illegal immigration issue

By Tom Curry

National affairs writer

MSNBC

updated 4:12 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct. 24, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Senate rejected Wednesday an attempt to move ahead with a bill to allow illegal immigrants under age 30 to remain in the United States and gain legal status if they attend college or join the military.

The vote to move ahead on the Dream Act (the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), got 52 votes, eight short of the 60 needed.

Among those voting against moving ahead with the bill were eight Democrats, even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appealed to his majority to back him.

But this was yet another case when the Democratic majority was not a true working majority. Senate rules require a supermajority of 60 to advance most bills.

The vote was a significant leading indicator for 2008 of the potency of illegal immigration as an election issue.

Implications for 2008
Illegal immigration remains at a legislative impasse — and that may be a good thing for GOP chances since the party’s base in the South and West tends to be vehemently opposed to any accommodation with illegal immigrants.

In his post-vote assessment, the Dream Act’s chief sponsor, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “In a campaign year, it is a very difficult issue. If it’s tough this year, it’s tougher next year.”

Some senators, he said, “are running scared” on the illegal immigrant issue.

“Switchboards light up, the hates starts spewing, and people get concerned, to say the least,” Durbin told reporters.

Twelve Republicans joined most Democrats in voting to proceed.

Two of the Republican senators in competitive races next year, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine, voted to push ahead with the bill.

But two other GOP senators in tight races, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Gordon Smith of Oregon, voted against it.

People in Montana 'outraged'
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana — who is up for re-election next year — said the Dream Act was “huge, huge” as an issue on the minds of people in his state.

“People are very upset, they’re outraged; it’s like amnesty, it’s virtually the same” he said after casting his “no” vote.

Mail, phone calls, and e-mail on the issue pouring into his office were “off the wall,” Baucus said.

Most Montanans, he said, believed the bill would have given an unfair benefit to illegal immigrants.

Baucus’s freshman Democratic colleague from Montana Sen. Jon Tester also voted “no,” as did another freshman Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Southern Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Robert Byrd of West Virginia all voted against the Dream Act.

Most analysts see Landrieu as the most endangered Senate Democrat up for re-election next year.

Pryor, too, is up for re-election in 2008.

Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain of Arizona was absent for the vote, even though he’d been present for a vote just an hour earlier on the nomination of appeals court judge Leslie Southwick.

The bill would have allowed illegal immigrants, if they passed background checks and became permanent legal residents, to qualify for lower in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities, a point cited by Sen. Kent Conrad, D- N.D, who voted “no.”

Conrad explained that from his constituents in North Dakota, “I was hearing, ‘wait a minute, this is more generous than what we’re doing for people who were born in this country.’ And it’s certainly commendable to want to give this kind of educational assistance to people. But how can you justify that when we don’t do it for people who were raised in our country?”

From North Dakotans, Conrad said, “What I hear is, ‘look, you’ve got to secure the border. That’s got to be priority number one.’”

Fellow North Dakotan, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan, joined Conrad in voting “no.”

Penalizing children for their parents' actions
To be eligible for the bill, the illegal immigrants would have to have been 15 years old or younger when they arrived in the United States.

Reid argued that “children should not be penalized for the actions of their parents. Many of the children come here when they’re very, very young; many don’t even remember their home countries or speak the language of their home countries.”

“Why good does it do anybody to prevent these young people from having a future?”

But the Dream Act’s foes said illegal immigrants did have a future — outside the United States.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., urged those in the United States illegally “to go home and sign up for a legal program. We can do that in an orderly way.”

Assessing Democrats' motives
DeMint said the American people had delivered a message last year when the Senate scuttled a broader immigration bill that they did not want any legalization for those in the country illegally.

“I think it will make people even madder if we’re trying to sneak this through under the guise of ‘doing something for the children,’” he said Tuesday.

DeMint’s assessment of the vote was that Democrats “were just trying to go through the checklist” for their constituency groups.

“They are probably hoping Republicans will stop it,” he mused Tuesday. “I think they’d like to take credit for trying,” but not actually pass the bill.

Then he added, “Maybe I’m too cynical.”

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21456667/

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MSN Privacy . Legal

© 2007 MSNBC.com

Angry migrant underclass might erupt in U.S. BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

The rapid escalation of the U.S. anti-immigration hysteria -- fueled by ratings-hungry cable-television hotheads and leading Republican presidential hopefuls -- is a dangerous trend: It may lead to a Hispanic intifada that may rock this nation in the not-so-distant future.

Remember the Palestinian intifada of the early 1990s, when thousands of frustrated young Palestinians took to the streets and threw stones at Israeli troops? Remember the French intifada of the summer of 2005, in which disenfranchised Muslim youths burned cars and stores in the suburbs of Paris?

If we are not careful, we may see something similar coming from the estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, most of them Hispanic, who are increasingly vilified in the media, forced further into the underground by spineless politicians and not given any chance to legalize their status by a pusillanimous U.S. Congress.

We are creating an underclass of people who won't leave this country and, realistically, can't be deported. They and their children are living with no prospect of earning a legal status, no matter how hard they work for it. Many of them will become increasingly frustrated, angry, and some of them eventually may turn violent.

I was thinking about all of this when I read about last week's U.S. Senate refusal to pass the Dream Act, a bill that would offer a path to legalization to children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States at a very young age, and who get a college degree or serve in the military.

MIAMI BROTHERS

The bill would have regularized the status of youths like Juan and Alex Gomez, the two Colombian-born Miami brothers who were brought by their parents to this country as toddlers, graduated near the top of their high school classes, and now face deportation to a country they don't even remember.

There are an estimated 1.8 million children in the United States who are growing up like other American kids, often speak no language other than English, but don't have legal documents, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They are denied in-state college tuition fees or scholarships that are available to legal U.S. residents, and are eventually thrown into a labor market where they are barred from being employed.

Further, the Bush administration-backed escalation of raids against undocumented workers in factories, the increase of city ordinances prohibiting people from leasing apartments to undocumented immigrants, and the overt xenophobia spilling daily from Hispanic-phobic radio and cable-television shows will leave their mark on these and other children in immigrant communities.

A study released last week by the Urban Institute and the National Council of La Raza says there are about five million U.S. children with at least one undocumented parent.

''The recent intensification of immigration enforcement activities by the federal government has increasingly put these children at risk of family separation, economic hardship, and psychological trauma,'' the report says.

The study looked at the impact of recent U.S. immigration raids in Colorado, Nebraska and Massachusetts, where about 900 undocumented workers were arrested at their work sites, and their children -- most often infants -- were suddenly deprived of their fathers or mothers.

''The combination of fear, isolation, and economic hardship induced mental health problems such as depression, separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide thoughts,'' it said.

My opinion: We have to stop this xenophobic hysteria. And please, dear anti-immigration readers, don't tell me I'm being dishonest for failing to point out that you are not against legal immigration, but only against ``illegals.''

You are making a deceptive argument. Leaving aside the fact that nearly half of the undocumented immigrants came to this country legally, and overstayed their visas, their non-compliance with immigration rules should not stigmatize them with the label of ``illegals.''

DANGEROUS PATH

You may have violated a rule, but that should not make you an ''illegal'' person. You may have gotten a ticket for speeding, but that doesn't make you an ''illegal'' human being, even if the potential harm of your reckless driving is much greater than anything done by most of the hard-working undocumented immigrants in this country.

Carrying out enforcement-only policies, labeling undocumented workers as ''illegals'' and depriving them of hope for upward mobility -- rather than working toward greater economic cooperation with Latin America to reduce migration pressures -- is not only wrong, but dangerous. The millions of undocumented among us will not leave. They will only get angrier.

October 28, 2007

Editorial Observer

What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments — penalties and fines — and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.

Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It’s the crime you can’t make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.

America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.

“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.

Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.

Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”

But at least “undocumented” — and an even better word, “unauthorized” — contain the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. The paralysis in Congress and the country over fixing our immigration laws stems from our inability to get our heads around the wrenching change involved in making an illegal person legal. Think of doing that with a crime, like cocaine dealing or arson. Unthinkable!

So people who want to enact sensible immigration policies to help everybody — to make the roads safer, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer would with his driver’s license plan, or to allow immigrants’ children to go to college or serve in the military — face the inevitable incredulity and outrage. How dare you! They’re illegal.

Meanwhile, out on the edges of the debate — edges that are coming closer to the mainstream every day — bigots pour all their loathing of Spanish-speaking people into the word. Rant about “illegals” — call them congenital criminals, lepers, thieves, unclean — and people will nod and applaud. They will send money to your Web site and heed your calls to deluge lawmakers with phone calls and faxes. Your TV ratings will go way up.

This is not only ugly, it is counterproductive, paralyzing any effort toward immigration reform. Comprehensive legislation in Congress and sensible policies at the state and local level have all been stymied and will be forever, as long as anything positive can be branded as “amnesty for illegals.”

We are stuck with a bogus, deceptive strategy — a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border to stop a fraction of border crossers who are only 60 percent of the problem anyway, and scattershot raids to capture a few thousand members of a group of 12 million.

None of those enforcement policies have a trace of honesty or realism. At least they don’t reward illegals, and that, for now, is all this country wants.

Congress to Immigrants: Dream On

October 25, 2007, 3:23 pm

Congress to Immigrants: Dream On

By The Editorial Board

The Dream Act has died.

The bill, which would give a path to legalization to young immigrants who go to college or join the military, needed 60 votes in the Senate yesterday to overcome a Republican filibuster. It got 52.

And so Congress’s losing streak on immigration reform continues. The Dream Act’s supporters had been hoping to win something for a small, striving, highly promising segment of the undocumented population. Who could be threatened, after all, by new high school graduates who were brought here by their parents, grew up in America, and yearn to get a college degree or to serve the country in uniform — but are stuck in a paperwork trap that can’t be opened?

But the Senate’s message was like a speech from a prison warden in a bad juvenile-delinquent movie: You’re illegal. You’re going to stay that way. We don’t like your kind.

Does that sound like hyperbole?

Well, consider that Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican running for president on an immigrant-loathing platform, tried to stage a federal raid on a Dream Act news conference. He wanted agents to arrest students who were appearing with the bill’s main sponsor, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois.

“I call on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to detain any illegal aliens at this press conference,” Sheriff Tancredo said in a statement. “Just because these illegal aliens are being used for political gain doesn’t mean they get immunity from the law.”

(The students were actually in the country legally. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency did not show up.)

Numbers USA, the anti-immigrant group that helped to kill the Senate’s big immigration bill in June, called for another fax-and-phone blitz to stop “this nightmarish amnesty,” as it called the Dream Act.

The bill was stopped.

It was a crushing disappointment to thousands of high school and college students who had mobilized their classmates and friends, sending letters, making posters, to lobby for the bill.

Mr. Durbin made an eloquent plea for the bill, just before the losing vote: “How can we say no to hope?”

Well, they did.

Here is a list of the Republicans who resisted their party’s no-to-hope message, and the Democrats who knuckled under.

Republicans who voted YES to proceed on the Dream Act:

• Bob Bennett of Utah
• Sam Brownback of Kansas
• Norm Coleman of Minnesota
• Susan Collins of Maine
• Larry Craig of Idaho
• Chuck Hagel of Nebraska
• Orrin Hatch of Utah
• Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
• Trent Lott of Mississippi
• Richard Lugar of Indiana
• Mel Martinez of Florida
• Olympia Snowe of Maine

Democrats who voted NO:

• Max Baucus of Montana
• Robert Byrd of West Virginia
• Kent Conrad of North Dakota
• Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
• Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
• Claire McCaskill of Missouri
• Mark Pryor of Arkansas
• Jon Tester of Montana

The roll call

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110^th Congress - 1^st Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S. 2205 )
Vote Number:	394	Vote Date:	October 24, 2007, 12:27 PM
Required For Majority:	3/5	Vote Result:	Cloture Motion Rejected
Measure Number:	S. 2205
Measure Title:	A bill to authorize the cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain alien students who are long-term United States residents and who entered the United States as children, and for other purposes.

Vote Counts:	YEAs	52
	NAYs	44
	Not Voting	4

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---52
Akaka (D-HI) Bayh (D-IN) Bennett (R-UT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Brown (D-OH) Brownback (R-KS) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Clinton (D-NY) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Craig (R-ID) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA)	Hagel (R-NE) Harkin (D-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) Menendez (D-NJ)	Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Snowe (R-ME) Stabenow (D-MI) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---44
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bond (R-MO) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Byrd (D-WV) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Conrad (D-ND) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID)	DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM) Dorgan (D-ND) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) McCaskill (D-MO) McConnell (R-KY)	Murkowski (R-AK) Pryor (D-AR) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA)

Not Voting - 4
Boxer (D-CA) Dodd (D-CT)	Kennedy (D-MA) McCain (R-AZ)

Articles about the Dream Act in the month of July 2007

"Raising Young Voices for Illegal Mexican Immigrants"

New York Times published July 16th

American dream may be just that for S I student

NY Daily News published July 12th

Senate Must Deliver on Dream Act

El Diario/La Prensa July17th editorial

Student protest in front of Senator Schumer and Clinton

Korea Times July 18th article

Radio Rookies and the DREAM Act

aired July 10th, 2007
Radio Rookie Christian talks about his experiences as an undocumented teenager with his producer at Radio Rookies Melissa Robbins. Also, Carlos Perez from the New York State Youth Leadership Council explains the legal ramifications of the DREAM Act.

Welcome to our Blog!

Here you will find news articles, photographs, and other media about the DREAM ACT and the New York State Youth Leadership Council