Trivia question for all you policy wonks: before the DREAM Act passed Wednesday night, when was the last time you read the headline, "House passes historic immigration bill?"
Answer: December 16, 2005.
But December 16, 2005, was a night that lives in political infamy among supporters of progressive immigration reform. That was the night the Republican-controlled House passed a notoriously anti-immigrant bill authored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI).
The Sensenbrenner bill would have turned undocumented workers and anyone who helped them -- including their priests and pastors -- into felons. It was also the day that the Republican Party made a dangerous move: siding with its hard-core nativist wing over moderate members and Latino voters. The Sensenbrenner bill sparked a backlash that continues to fester. It became one of the reasons Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006, lost the White House in 2008, and lost the chance to take back the Senate in 2010.
This week, however, after years of organizing, citizenship drives and voter mobilization, the words, "House passes historic immigration bill" finally took on a tone of courage and hope. The DREAM Act passed the House on Wednesday by a 216 - 198 margin. Eight brave Republicans joined with most Democrats to stand up for high-achieving young people who are American in all but paperwork. The measure even attracted support from a number of conservative Democrats, some of whom, like Chet Edwards (D-TX) took to the House floor to speak on its behalf.
The House-passed DREAM Act would turn a highly deserving group of undocumented young people who want to go to college or serve in the military into legal residents and eventually citizens. Authored by Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), the DREAM Act allows young people who were brought to the U.S. as children, grew up as Americans, and did everything asked of them a chance to become citizens and give back to the only country they call home. It is estimated that some 800,000 young people -- all of whom who are here and have lived here for at least five years -- will qualify.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even took to the House floor to make a passionate speech for DREAM :
If you listened to the full House debate, however, it was clear that there are still a gang of nativists who want to take up the mantle of Sensenbrenner. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) are chief among them. Leaving aside their egregious distortions of a narrow, bipartisan, and deficit-reducing bill, they have a warped sense of political reality. These Congressmen may as well start every speech by saying, "We want to ensure that no Latino voter ever votes Republican again." Their vitriolic anti-immigrant rhetoric pits white people against a "menacing" and "lawless" minority, a strategy guaranteed to further alienate the fastest growing voting demographic.
In the coming weeks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- who has long championed the bill -- plans to take up the House-passed version of this legislation. We've got a chance to make history again in the Senate. To read the papers today, however, you'd think the DREAM Act died in the Senate on Thursday.
In fact, this past Thursday the DREAM Act was given new life by a deft procedural move by Majority Leader Harry Reid. Following that historic House vote Wednesday night -- which caught many pundits in Washington by surprise -- Reid made the strategically smart decision to table the Senate bill in order to hold a vote on the House-passed DREAM Act in the coming weeks.
Why? For one, Senate Republicans had claimed they would vote in lock step against the bill over "process" objections. The Senate can now deal with the all-consuming tax cuts issue before it takes up the House-passed legislation. Secondly, DREAM backers have more time to round up swing votes. Also, by taking up the House bill, Reid is following the shortest road to turn DREAM into law, instead of starting over with a new piece of legislation that hadn't cleared either chamber. Repeat: Reid's move to table the Senate version of DREAM makes the chances of the DREAM Act becoming law much better, not worse.
Mainstream journalists, who likely already had their stories written, are doing a terrible job explaining this to the American people. Not so in the Latino blogosphere or Spanish speaking media, where the movement on DREAM has been getting wall-to-wall coverage in print and broadcast.
Those of us who work this issue day in and day out -- and the young leaders who have courageously led the fight to pass this legislation -- know that we're closer than ever to success. We're heartened by the latest Gallup poll that reaffirms what research has told us time and again: a solid majority of Americans back the DREAM Act. We're also heartened that Senator Lugar (R-IN), a long-time champion of the bill, has again become a firm yes vote on DREAM today.
Passing the DREAM Act in the House was not a fluke; it was a sign that the growing movement for immigration reform is getting stronger every day and that immigration reform isn't nearly as scary as Washington likes to think. In fact, it's inevitable.
Harry Reid understands this better than anyone, and he just positioned DREAM to give it the best chance possible to cross the finish line this month. Now, we just need a handful of Republican Senators to step up to the plate and turn this historic, bipartisan House victory into law.
Cross-Posted at America's Voice.
Follow Frank Sharry on Twitter: www.twitter.com/americasvoice
These kids will finish college not commit crimes, or they are deported, pay taxes hopefully open up businesses because that's what college graduates do. If they don't graduate with an associates degree then they have to serve two years on the military or they are then deported if they don't meet the requirements they are deported.
This is win win for our country either our economy wins or our military.
To say we are giving amnesty is false, how can a one year old, a two year old, etc, break the laws of the united states of America? They can't, here in America we don't blame children for the mistakes of their parents...
As an American I hope the dream act passes it is good for these kids and good for our country.
WHY SHOULD THE LATINOS HELP REELECT OBAMA WHO REFUSES TO FIGHT FOR THEM?
Makes "You lie" sound true.
1. Application: The DREAM amnesty begins with illegal aliens filling out applications. They merely have to claim — not provide evidence — that they meet criteria of having been brought to the U.S. before age 16 and being under the age of 30 at time of enactment and being present in the U.S. at least 5 years before enactment of the amnesty, among other criteria.
2. Work Permits Given: Upon filing the application, the illegal aliens are given a 10-year work permit to compete directly with the 22 million Americans who want a full-time job but can’t find one.
Estimates suggest that up to 2 million illegal aliens could legitimately qualify for the opening application, and perhaps a couple million more might be or look young enough to fraudulantly apply.
Those millions would immediately be able to legally compete for any U.S. job…
So what if hundreds of thousands of Americans take advantage of the welfare system, it's their country and the system was setup for them, US citizens, not for foreigners and foreigners who come here and have children.
Foreigners should not worry about US senior citizens, they should be worried about the economy back in their own country.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy questioned prioritizing spending money on this instead of other initiatives Friday. "It is a case of mixed priorities when Congress can find millions in funding for students who are not here legally, yet fails to find adequate funding to help our senior citizens heat their homes," he said in a statement.
Illegals are costing California, by itself, 21 billion dollars a year.
The only cost assessment done so far on this bill has been a very incomplete and flawed CBO report that makes a couple of major errors - at the request of person pushing this bill.
1. The CBO stopped the analysis just before the millions of illegals will be able to take advantage of our social programs. Once they become eligible the study stopped counting.
2. No mention was made of the cost of any children these illegals push onto us to pay for. No education costs, etc.
3. No environmental costs done. Several million people cause a lot of damage and use a lot of scarce natural resources.
4. No cost of loss of jobs for citizens. Since there aren't any jobs available and 2 million illegals taking jobs from citizens means we will pay unemployment/welfare, housing, etc from yet another 2 million citizens. Cost - billions.
5. They forgot to add the federal matching costs for higher education.
Total lie to say this doesn't cost us.
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And they are... today, then, and tomorrow. The consequences of NOT implementing that law has cost people who could not afford it a huge amount of money. It has trebled crime, and created a huge division in our society. One side wants the law enforced... the other doesn't. We will win though, and Sensenbrenners' law may yet become .. law.
I saw one comment that said the Dream Act would usher in a new age of intellectual and professional renaissance in this country. That is just plain pitiful.
Republicans in the House who helped to pass the Dream Act -
Anh Cao (LA – 2)
Michael Castle (DE – 1)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL – 21)
Mario Diaz- Balart (FL -25)
Charles Djou (HI – 1)
Vernon Ehlers (MI – 3)
Bob Inglis (SC – 4)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fl – 18)