Pro & Con: Should Congress pass the DREAM Act for immigrant children?

These children were brought to this country by their parents at very young ages, and through no fault of their own are undocumented.

We as taxpayers have invested in their k-12 education, and they deserve a chance to go to college or serve in our military. These 74,000 kids are 3 percent of the 2.1 million nationally who could potentially be impacted by the DREAM Act.

They deserve an opportunity to contribute to the country they have known as their home for most of their lives.

The bipartisan DREAM Act would provide undocumented students the opportunity to become legal residents if they graduate from high school and complete two years of college or military service.

It’s a no-brainer. The DREAM Act is a tremendous investment, a great way to further integrate students who are already an integral part of our society and economy, and a great incentive for these young people to pursue higher education or military service.

The viability of the DREAM Act is even included in the U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Plan for 2010-12 as a way to increase potential military recruits.

Despite the fact that comprehensive immigration reform is truly the answer to our broken immigration system, the DREAM Act would be a good start.

Unfortunately, during the most recent Joint Legislative Committee on Immigration Reform public hearing, our state legislators who have the power to influence the passage of this critical legislation continued to deliberately overlook the facts and entertain the reckless rhetoric at the expense of innocent students.

In fact, Rep. Tom Rice, R-Norcross, has pre-filed a proposal that would ban access to higher education to all undocumented students in our state, making Georgia only the second state with such a restrictive policy for access to higher education.

In fact, most states have passed legislation that encourages youth in these situations to attend higher education by allowing in-state tuition. These states are in full compliance with federal laws.

In Georgia, the Board of Regents has reserved a ban of access to the top five universities and colleges due to space limitations, but allows access to all other institutions for higher education.

These students when enrolled in Georgia, under current state law, would be required to pay out-of-state tuition, which creates a profit for the colleges they attend. Their enrollment is not subsidized at all by taxpayers, according to the analysis done by the Board of Regents.

Education is a great equalizer. Despite the belief of Georgia Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, these young people are not “wasted space” at our institutions of higher learning. They are truly an asset for our state.

Denying access to education to anyone who is qualified and willing to be educated is morally reprehensible.

These youth are the promise and the future of our great state and nation, and they should be afforded every opportunity to fulfill their human potential to contribute to society.

The time for political posturing has passed. It’s time to lead and time to stand up for our shared values of an education and rewarding hard work.

We would hope that our congressional delegation would move quickly and support the DREAM Act with great urgency during this lame-duck session. No one should dash the dreams of so many young people.

Jerry Gonzalez is executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO).

NO: The act’s loopholes will entice people to enter the United States illegally.

By Phil Kent

The usual propaganda is again being rolled out urging Congress to pass the DREAM Act that would grant amnesty to Kennesaw State University’s Jessica Colotl and countless other illegal alien students who arrived as children with their parents when they snuck across our border.

Unfortunately, as sympathetic as we might be for such young people with compelling human interest stories, the DREAM Act is so full of loopholes that passage would result in a nightmare for our nation.

Perhaps if the DREAM Act drew the lines more narrowly as to who could stay — especially if it really covered just children who have grown up culturally and psychologically as Americans over the past 15 years or so, it might garner more support. But this legislation contains major flaws.

Anyone who claims to meet the criteria for the amnesty under the act must be granted legal status unless the government spends the time and money to prove that they don’t. This means every state would be stuck with hundreds of thousands of illegals who would receive a “get out of jail free” card, and who will be counting on the fact that the government doesn’t have the resources to check whether the flood of applications are legitimate or fraudulent.

Numbers USA researcher Jeremy Beck underscores the important national security impact:

“The DREAM Act would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from deporting aliens who’ve applied for the amnesty until their applications are resolved — and if DHS eventually decides that some aliens do not qualify for the amnesty, DHS cannot use the statements aliens made in their applications to deport them, because their statements are protected by the confidentiality section in the act. Savvy criminals could halt or slow their deportations long enough to be released back into the general population.”

Furthermore, if the DREAM ACT is passed, millions of its beneficiaries would then be able to eventually sponsor parents and other relatives to legally come here — including those adults who originally broke the law and put the young DREAM Act recipient in their current tight spot. Each of these family members could then sponsor their extended family.

So why would Congress, especially as the country faces years of high national unemployment, want to expand the number of newcomers who would further strain everything ranging from our schools to our health care system?

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 2.1 million people would be eligible for the DREAM Act legalization. But that estimate obviously does not take into account this Third World chain migration trigger buried in the legislation.

The open borders lobby loves the DREAM Act because it does nothing to prevent parents from anywhere in the world from bringing their children here illegally. The law would enable the children get a kindergarten through 12th grade education, welfare and other services all at taxpayer expense — and it then simply puts them in the same untenable position as Jessica Colotl is now.

The DREAM Act would be the eighth legislative amnesty for millions of illegal aliens since 1986, and all too many of those recipients haven’t bothered to learn English proficiently or assimilate into the overall culture.

As columnist George Will notes, we’ve “imported poverty” by amnestying millions who earn less than $10,000 a year and who have less than an eighth-grade education.

Why should Congress grant yet another mass amnesty that will only serve as a magnet for more illegal immigrants to come here?

Phil Kent of Atlanta is national spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control.