Help The DREAM Act pass
As some of you know, my past job was working with a non-profit agency that helped many people with economic, educational, and advocacy issues. Through this job, I met a few incredible people my age or younger who would benefit from the DREAM Act, which will hopefully come up for a vote sometime next week. The DREAM Act would provide a way for undocumented youth to legalize their immigration status. Many of these youth were brought here at young ages by their parents by no choice of their own, have been raised here, speak English, and don't even remember their native countries or home languages. Yet, they run the risk of being deported back to countries where they may not even know anyone or how to communicate because of a decision that their parents (or the US government, by denying asylum/refugee requests) made when they were young. To me, this situation is incredibly unjust, and it makes sense to try to close this loophole through the Dream Act.
The requirements are:
* You entered the country before the age of 16;
* You graduate high school or obtain a GED;
* You have good moral character (no criminal record); and
* You have at least ten years of continuous presence in the US.
If you meet the above criteria, once the DREAM Act passes, you will then have six years within which to obtain a two-year college degree or complete two-years of military service. Upon doing all of this you will gain the chance to adjust your conditional permanent residency to U.S. citizenship. Obviously that's a lot of time, and a lot of work, so this means that people who apply for this will really have to work hard and wait a long time to earn resident status, especially since these students currently aren't eligible for any form of financial aid, state or federal, except for a very few private scholarships (and they are very limited; trust me, I've looked).
I don't usually use my journal for things like this, but if the DREAM Act doesn't get passed now during Congress' lame duck session, it's very unlikely that it will be passed for several more years because of the heavily-Republican and Tea Party Congress that's coming in. Based on their campaign ads and platforms, they are likely to only make things worse for immigrants in this country, regardless of legal status. If you want to help, please e-mail your senators and representatives, or better yet, call them just to tell them who you are and to support the DREAM Act, especially if you live in Virginia or Ohio.
Here's a link to the phone number to call your representatives/senators: action.dreamactivist.org/dreamtarget/
And for e-mail:
www.house.gov/
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=VA
VA senators are Webb and Warner.
The requirements are:
* You entered the country before the age of 16;
* You graduate high school or obtain a GED;
* You have good moral character (no criminal record); and
* You have at least ten years of continuous presence in the US.
If you meet the above criteria, once the DREAM Act passes, you will then have six years within which to obtain a two-year college degree or complete two-years of military service. Upon doing all of this you will gain the chance to adjust your conditional permanent residency to U.S. citizenship. Obviously that's a lot of time, and a lot of work, so this means that people who apply for this will really have to work hard and wait a long time to earn resident status, especially since these students currently aren't eligible for any form of financial aid, state or federal, except for a very few private scholarships (and they are very limited; trust me, I've looked).
I don't usually use my journal for things like this, but if the DREAM Act doesn't get passed now during Congress' lame duck session, it's very unlikely that it will be passed for several more years because of the heavily-Republican and Tea Party Congress that's coming in. Based on their campaign ads and platforms, they are likely to only make things worse for immigrants in this country, regardless of legal status. If you want to help, please e-mail your senators and representatives, or better yet, call them just to tell them who you are and to support the DREAM Act, especially if you live in Virginia or Ohio.
Here's a link to the phone number to call your representatives/senators: action.dreamactivist.org/dreamtarget/
And for e-mail:
www.house.gov/
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=VA
VA senators are Webb and Warner.