No matter where you live, it's hard not to see that we are experiencing one of the toughest times in our nation's history. So it isn't surprising to see the kind of rhetoric that tries to pit Americans -- immigrants and citizens, black, whites, Asians and Hispanics, Catholics, Jews and Muslims -- against each other for what some would say are limited resources.
I am reminded of an episode from my days in the Army. Surrounded by the Chinese and in need of reinforcements, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Vines got on the phone and told his superiors, "We need replacement or we've got to get out of here." They responded that there were "no colored replacements."
Just two years earlier in 1948, President Truman signed an Executive Order to integrate the military and outlawed discrimination. Yet the reality was that regiments were still divided along color lines. This mattered little to Lt. Col. Vines: "I don't care what color they are. You send someone up here to defend this country or we're pulling out of here." He knew that what mattered most was not how people looked or where they came from, but their commitment to their country.
This is where we find ourselves today and why the DREAM ACT is so important. At a time when this nation is in desperate need for scientists, researchers, teachers and other professionals, why are we unwilling to allow some of the best and brightest students in our country to help America maintain its greatness? Many of these students may have arrived here illegally by their parents, but they have been raised as Americans. They salute the flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star-Spangled Banner. They are Boy Scouts, prom queens and class valedictorians. And they too want to give back by becoming professionals or serving in the military.
If morality does not move the Senate, then sheer economic self-interest should. The more our talented students are forced into the dark in fear of being deported, the greater the loss in potential tax revenue. In some of them we might just have the next Einstein, the next Bill Gates, or the next great American who might discover a cure for cancer or employ thousands of workers. The impact of such wasted talent is felt not just in our wallets, but in the ability of our economy to grow and remain globally competitive.
We have already invested so much in our future. To deny students the opportunity to reach their potential solely based on their legal status is both morally and economically wrong. This is time for us not to retreat but to move forward and support the DREAM Act.
The Spanish version of this article, "¿Por qué el Dream Act es tan importante?" was originally publised in El Diario/La Pensa on December 12, 2010.
Follow Rep. Charles Rangel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cbrangel
All one need to do is look at that CA Dream Act to see how your state's university system will creak, crack and fail under the stress. Currently 25,000 illegal aliens receive in state tuition and taxpayer subsidy for their education at UCs. At $23,000 per illegal, that is $575 million in cost to educate illegals at UC... that does not include the subsidies for CSU and the JC system. It is an outstanding cost for a benefit that is not a right. There is no right to higher education, the taxpayer should not be subsidizing illegals they should pay the same tuition as foreign students.
The result, UC and CSU systems have dramatically increased tuition for all students over the past two years. Making an education less affordable to our legal residents who played by the rules. As a result the regents have voted to reduce in-state admissions to get higher tuition from out of state and foreign students. Thus the opportunity to get admission to a UC or CSU just dropped for the legal resident.
Meanwhile congress may pass the act, and the president will sign the act to the detriment of the vast majority of legal residents and real taxpaying public.
You are on of the few Democrats with any courage... the overwhelming vast majority of Democrats are weaker than sugar-glass and have positively terrified of the Republican minority for the past two years. What do you honestly think will happen next year when the GOP controls the House? Seriously... you can kiss the Dream Act and all Progressive legislature goodbye.
The Progressive base is so infuriated with the Dems at this point that we're turning away but sadly there's no one to turn to, the GOP's not an option so, we just stay home.
You may stand tall but the majority of Democrats will be shaking and wizzing in the corner. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the Dems show all the backbone of an amoeba.
Evade tax on income, file false financial statements with the Fair Political Practices Commission, take junkets provided by those with business before Congress, introduce tax bills written by lobbyists (your really didnt think he is smart enough to have had any hand in writing the lions share of tax legislation since Rostenkowski went to jail?), and get a Dominican Beach Resort home on the cheap with sweetheart financing from a developer with recurrent business before the Ways and Means.. not to mention using a rent control apt for business offices.. etc etc..
And all you have to do is get a stern talking to, and resign you committee chair, come on! And then get re-elected by landslide by the discriminating Harlem voters that relected Adam Clayton Powell after he went to jail.
What a bunch of excrement.
interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:
a.. Number of States won by:
Obama: 19 McCain: 29
b.. Square miles of land won by:
Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
c.. Population of counties won by:
Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million
d.. Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was
mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income
tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency
and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's
population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegals - and
they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
I live the reality, it is all over here. There is just no way that the state can continue to import the uneducated poor that demand huge levels of services and cannot or will not contribute even a small portion of the expense that they generate.
With the highest income tax rates in the nation that reach down to low levels of income. For example a single taxpayer with $40,000 in income pays 10% top marginal rate. With the highest sales tax in the nation, with the highest gas taxes in the nation. etc etc Ca does not have an tax revenue problem, we have a spending problem. We are bankrupt both at the state, county and city level. It is likely that the City of Los Angeles will go bankrupt in the next few years.
Currently there is a surcharge to take a UHaul trailer out of Ca, as the trailers are leaving in droves, and nobody wants to take them back in. The taxpayers that are supporting the mess are leaving.
Stuff like amnesty and the dream act will bring reality home to your state.
Also proponents would have you believe that it is all little innocent kids that grow up to be valedictorians and High School sr class Presidents.
The Dream Act applies to 35 year olds with GED's (or with a forged GED) and gives them 10 years legal status to get a 2 yr AA degree. Not exactly the future captains of industry, lawyers and judges, etc that the proponents attempt to fantasize.
The reality is, applicants will flood in with fake documentation, as illegals always use fake ID. They will apply for legal Dream Act status, and since the majority coming in will be uneducated, they will opt to have an anchor baby and achieve legal status the easy way for the vast majority of cases.
Currently, there is a debate going on as to how many criminal misdemeanors one can commit and still be qualified.
It is Amnesty, and the PR that the proponents are selling this tripe with is just spin based on the 1% case, not the reality of the situation.
Here is what we SHOULD do: End all the "one time" amnesties forever. Send all the illegals home. That can be done, and far easier than people think. Declare a permanent end to the era of illegal immigration. Have a moratorium on legal immigration (with limited exceptions), assimilate what we have, restore America as a sovereign nation (NO "North American Union" !!!), then, after at least five years (10 would be better) recommence legal immigration at greatly reduced numbers, say, 250,000 per year. By the way-lets take in ONLY those immigrants that fit our requirements; educated in certain fields, etc.
Rangel is just another (disgraced) pol that has forgotten that he works for America and not trespassers.
Given that virtually all illegals had false ID, false green cards, and false drivers licenses, there is not a lot of resistance in that community to providing fraudulent documents to employers and others. It is standard operating procedure to get over. So why not just come in and submit a fake package. How is the govt going to check millions of applications? It will be at best a random, cursory, spot check.
One only need to look at Nicky Diaz and the illegal university students highlighted in Dream Act Press Plant Articles, to see how attitudes have changed in the illegal community since the last Amnesty in the 80's. There is no fear in the illegal community. Nicky admitted she was illegal and confessed to a host of felonies for false ID on National TV no less. There is no fear of the immigration authorities, thus why would there be any fear of submitting phony paperwork for a Dream Act application for legal residency.
We are selling citizenship for the cost of a free college education and a 2yr AA degree.
However we American citizens do get one thing out of it... the bill. Yup the democrats want the American taxpayer to subsidize their education while cheating our American kids.
The Nightmare Act has no cap, no end-date and no enforcement. It's simply a "mass ongoing amnesty". In the future any foreign family with a school age child can sneak in the country and enroll their child in school to obtain automatic citizenship.
Why do democrats hate American kids so much???
1. so that 35 yr olds can file a form saying that they went to high school for 3 years (note no diploma, no GED needed), so they can get 10 years of legal status. (Note with the millions and millions of form submissions, no one will ever check them on more than a spot check basis for accuracy). It is a half an amnesty.
2. So they can then apply to gain admission for other relatives under the Family Reunification Act. (The current record under the Family reunification Act was one man who was able to bring in 285 family members, this is not just your wife, mother, father and children)
3. To establish a college education as a right for non-citizens, where no such right exists for citizens!
4. To swell the enrollment of our already crowded University system, to deny an admission slot to citizens and legal residents, to subsidize tuition for illegals to the detriment of our own citizens that wish to get a degree.
They sell it with valedictorians and illegal student body presidents, when in reality it is just about anyone, and all they need to do is take a spanish class at a Junior college to get legal. We are selling legality on the cheap.
The only truly deserving group in the Dream Act mess are those illegals that volunteer for the military. The rest of it is just an Amnesty sell out.
What happens to the parents who brought the kid here in the first place? Anything? Nothing?
When did we decide that everyone has the right to an education past the 12th grade?
Furthermore, When did we decide to allow that right to illegal aliens?
Furthermore, When did we decide that illegal aliens should have a right to in state tuition and financial aid for higher education?
FACT
Under the Dream Act an illegal immigrant would have a right to in state tuition, even if they, absent the fact that they are illegals, would need to pay higher Out of State tuition.
FACT
The number of slots in Universities are not unlimited, for every admission under the act, another applicant would be denied a slot. In most cases there are far more applicants than slots for admission currently.
FACT
Under the California Dream Act passed in 2000, the only equivalent law I know of, The University of California a prestigious University of higher learning. The in state tuition is subsidized at Approximately $23,000 per student. In Martinez v regents, testimony was given that there are 25,000 illegals attending the UC system. 23,000 X 25,000=$575,000,000 taxpayer subsidy of illegal immigrant immigration. And for every one of the 25,000, a deserving citizen or legal resident was denied a quality UC education.
This is real life, with real consequences for our own citizens and legal residents. Given the budget, UC has hiked tuition, and will next year admit more out of state and foreigners at higher tuition. Yet the changes will not amount to more than $575,000,000 per year.
There is no in-state eligibility under the DREAM Act. each individual will receive a NON-IMMIGRANT legal status, meaning each state will have to define what that means under their own in-state policy. Go read the bill if you are so well educated, these kids know better than you!
FACT:
No university is against the DREAM Act. Universities across the nation have room to spare. The majority of these kids would be going to public schools anyways, in which across the nation the reality is very much similar for almost all schools, they could all use more students paying fully into the system. not even gonna bother with your third statement because it's just well, those schools have the capacity to intake those kids, otherwise they would not be there.
THIS is real life:
The dream act on it's current status as passed by the House would provide an over $1.4 billion reduce in the deficit over the mere next years. Tuition will not hike as money currently wasted will be now used to educate thousands, while filling gaps in the system itself. These men and women will only create more power for the nation. I see nothing bad in that!
And please stop reading the news only and go read the bill and all the studies done around it.
Lets send the illegalk home and stop rewarding trespassers for any reason. No to the Dream (nightmare for America) Act.
What he also fails to mention is that granting millions of illegals 18-30 would produce the same riots that happened in the early 1900's in Detroit (and surrounding areas) when the great migration moved north and white workers feared the blacks would take their jobs. This time, it will be black on brown.
Injecting that many into the 'legal' workforce will create the same race-riots that exist in prisons across the U.S.
I find it hard to believe that ha cannot see this outcome.