Struggling to pursue college, students support DREAM Act
Shirin Parsavand | 10-28-2009 | Comments |
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Undocumented students struggle to stay in college, hope for DREAM Act passageUndocumented immigrant students who are struggling to attend college are pressing for a federal law that would allow them to receive student loans and eventually become citizens.
President Obama has said he would seek passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation next year. At a rally two weeks ago on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Rep Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., outlined the core principles he says should be part of an overhaul to the nation’s immigration laws. These include a means for undocumented workers to earn citizenship and “professional and effective” border enforcement.
But some don’t want to wait for broad changes to the immigration laws. They want Congress to act now on the DREAM Act, which was first introduced in 2001 and reintroduced in March. It would offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school in the United States and go on to enroll in college or to serve in the military.
Proposals to reform the nation’s immigration laws have drawn sharp debate, and the DREAM Act is no exception. Opponents say the DREAM Act would offer amnesty to those here illegally while supporters counter that those who would be affected often had no say in the decision to immigrate.
Arnoldo Sanchez, 21, said he didn’t know the details of his family’s immigration status until he was in high school and learned he could not apply for financial aid. Sanchez, who lives in South LA, paid his way for his first two years at Cal State LA by working at a theme park. But he had to quit a few months ago when his employer found out he was using a false Social Security number. Now, his older sisters are helping to pay his tuition.
DREAM Act’s pros and cons
Sanchez is a member of a support group for undocumented students at Cal State LA called SURGE, or Students United to Reach Goals in Education. It is part of a coalition of college students called DREAM Team LA that is working for passage of the DREAM Act. Last month the Los Angeles Unified School District board added its support, approving a resolution backing the legislation.
The legislation would enable undocumented students to reach their goals and go on to able to support their communities, Sanchez said. “We really just want a chance to give back,” he said.
The latest versions of the DREAM Act, or the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, do not allow undocumented students to receive Pell Grants or certain other federal grants for college. But these students would qualify for federal work study and student loans, and states would be able to make their own financial aid programs available to them, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
The center estimates that about 65,000 undocumented students who were raised in the United States graduate from high school every year and would qualify for the DREAM Act’s benefits.
The bill now has 31 cosponsors in the Senate and 102 in the House.
Groups favoring tighter immigration controls oppose the DREAM Act. NumbersUSA, which calls for reduced immigration, says passage of the legislation would mean those now here illegally would move ahead of millions of people who are going through the proper channels to come to the United States.
Student reactions mixed
Carmen Niño, 18, said she considered going back to Mexico to attend college after she graduated from Santee Education Complex in South Los Angeles. But she has lived in the United States since she was 4, and her Spanish is now weak, she said. When she speaks Spanish at home with her parents, they often correct her.
She elected to stay in the United States and attend college here.
“I thought it would be hard to start over again,” she said.
Inspired by her third-grade teacher, Niño wants to become a teacher herself and is now enrolled at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, a two-year school in South Los Angeles. But she and her friend Fabiola Precencion, a neighbor and fellow student at Trade-Tech, are now looking into cosmetology school as a less expensive alternative to their original plans. Precencion, 19, has lived in the United States since she was 5 and hopes eventually to become a registered nurse.
Unlike Niño, Precencion doesn’t think the DREAM Act should pass in its current form. She said it doesn’t give students an incentive to work hard in high school and go to college because it also lets those who serve in the military become citizens.
Another student at Trade-Tech, Soledad Fierros, would prefer comprehensive immigration reform that could help other members of her family become citizens. But Fierros, 19, still would like to see the DREAM Act pass.
Fierros, who came to the United States from Mexico when she was 8, hopes to transfer to the University of Southern California next year. She is getting help from the SCholars program, in which USC staff work with students who are eligible to transfer to USC and other selective research universities.
If she cannot quality for financial aid, she said, she probably will transfer instead to Cal State Long Beach. It would be a letdown since she grew up in the Adams-Normandie neighborhood in the shadow of USC, dreaming of attending the school.
“USC, of course, is my first choice,” she said. “Since I was little, I saw myself going there.”
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