Pass the DREAM Act for a Healthy Economy

Passing the DREAM Act is not only the right thing to do, but in these trying economic times it is also the sensible thing to do.

I am such a passionate advocate for the DREAM Act that I often forget there are people in this world that don't know what the DREAM Act is.  According to Wikipedia:

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (also called "The DREAM Act") [is] a piece of proposed federal legislation in the United States that would provide certain immigrant students who graduate from a [U.S. high school], are of good moral character, arrived in the US as children, and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency.

Wikipedia (23 March 2009)

The National Immigration Law Center also has a basic information sheet (pdf) that I print out and give to people who are not familiar with the DREAM Act.  I don't go into any migration-related meeting without it.  In 2007, I pushed hard for the DREAM Act when it was introduced  in the U.S. Senate, and I was crushed when it failed.  Migrant youth cannot wait any longer.  The time to pass the DREAM Act is now. 

Though I will be making a practical economic argument in this post, it's important to state that I am generally not a practical writer.  I believe the universe is on the side of justice. I am an idealist, not a realist.  Statistics don't inspire people to make change, heart does.  Even if the DREAM Act isn't passed during these trying economic times, unauthorized migrant youth will eventually see justice.  I truly believe this.  That doesn't mean I can be complacent.  I still have to participate in justice.  It's just a matter of having faith that others will participate in justice, too.

That is why the moral argument for the DREAM Act is so much more important than the practical one.  I'm going to show you, definitively, why it makes economic sense to pass the DREAM Act, now.  If the DREAM Act doesn't pass, though, and the economy recovers, the economic argument will be relegated to the past.  The moral argument, however, will stand the test of time.  If the DREAM Act doesn't pass, now, it is the moral argument that will eventually win the day.  This is why I will begin with the moral argument.

The Moral Argument: The Essence Of What It Means To Make This World A Better Place

If you would have told me years ago that I would become a passionate advocate for the DREAM Act, I wouldn't have believed you.  Over the last few years, I've been completely transformed by "DREAMers," the term we use for unauthorized migrant youth that would benefit from the DREAM Act.  Meeting DREAMers that have courageously spoken out for the DREAM Act and migration policy reform is inspirational beyond anything I can hope to describe. 

To list just a few examples: the DREAMers at DreamACTivist.org, run new media circles around the most prominent and well-funded migrant advocacy organizations, as evidenced by their recent campaining on change.org. In Massachusetts, I've learned more about on-the-ground organizing, movement building and making change from the Student Immigrant Movement in a year, than I've learned in a whole lifetime of activism.  I can't name many of the undocumented youth that I've met and worked with, but the few that I can, like Tam Tran, Mario Rodas, Juan Gomez, and Marie Gonzales, inspire me beyond any prominent celebrity or politician that I'll ever meet. 

 The DREAMer struggle has been articulated many times by people far more capable to do so than I am.  Still, I will give it a try.  65,000 unauthorized migrant youth graduate from U.S. high schools every year.  Many were brought to the U.S. before they could remember much else, and most know no other home except for the U.S.  The cruel irony of their situation is made all the more apparent by contrasting it with my story.  I was born in Guatemala and spent most of my life there.  I was given the privilege of U.S. citizenship simply because I was born of U.S. parents.  Meanwhile, DREAMers have lived most of their lives in the U.S., but are denied the privilege of U.S. citizenship because they had the misfortune of being born somewhere else.