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Immigration Reform: What The Last 'Path To Citizenship' Did For Immigrants

What The Last Path To Citizenship Did For Immigrants
Roque Planas
By 

National Reporter, HuffPost

LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 1: Demonstrators near City Hall from three separate immigrants' rights marches converge for a massive May Day rally May 1, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Thousands are expected to turn out for the International Workers Day immigration-rights marches and rally. In 2007, some people threw plastic water bottles and oranges at police. Riot police reacted by forcing thousands of people from Macarthur Park, beating and shooting rubber bullets at marchers and journalists. The LAPD has been briefing their officers to prevent a replay of the so-called 'May Day melee'. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 1: Demonstrators near City Hall from three separate immigrants' rights marches converge for a massive May Day rally May 1, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Thousands are expected to turn out for the International Workers Day immigration-rights marches and rally. In 2007, some people threw plastic water bottles and oranges at police. Riot police reacted by forcing thousands of people from Macarthur Park, beating and shooting rubber bullets at marchers and journalists. The LAPD has been briefing their officers to prevent a replay of the so-called 'May Day melee'. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

To some, steering a big yellow bus along the same city route day after day isn't a highly attractive career. But for Angelica Dimas, who illegally crossed the border into the United States from her native Tijuana, Mexico, in 1981, the opportunity to work as a bus driver in San Diego was a dream realized.

"I was so excited, so happy," she recalls, her voice tinged with pride. "I loved driving buses."

Initially, like countless other undocumented immigrants, Ms. Dimas worked below the legal radar, cleaning houses when she arrived in California at age 17. But five short years and many waxed floors later, when then-President Reagan passed the nation's first comprehensive immigration reform, Dimas filed an application to legalize her status. Along with her green card came the ability to finally get a driver's license, a bank account, a credit line – and the chance to get better jobs.

Read more on Christian Science Monitor

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Lamar Smith (R-TX)

6 Pols Against A Pathway To Citizenship

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