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Legal Status for Immigrant Youth!!!

CADENA Statement

CADENA, a grass roots organization that supports the passage of the DREAM Act and advocates for the rights of undocumented students, recognizes the urgent need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  CADENA encourages Congress to find workable solutions to reform immigration for America, solutions that uphold our values of liberty and justice for all, but CADENA also remains committed to the immediate need for resolution of the unique problems faced by undocumented students in this country.  

We welcome the inclusion of the DREAM ACT in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform package, but we believe it will be a major delay for students to wait until CIR is written, passed and implemented. We will lose more students to deportation. 

If the DREAM ACT is passed now, it will be implemented in 6 months, while we keep working on Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

The DREAM Act would grant undocumented students a path to legalization; after graduating from high school, students would be able to continue their studies or join the military.  CADENA supports the DREAM Act for the following reasons:

1.-DREAM students came to this country without any awareness of the legal consequences. 

2.-DREAM students are the most integrated group of immigrants.  They have attended school, learned English and have become an integral part of our communities.

3.-DREAM students represent valuable professional assets for the future of this country.

4.-DREAM students have developed relationships with teachers and mentors, and they have become active in educational organizations, religious institutions, the military and various non-profit groups.  In many cases, students have assumed leadership roles.

5.-The legislation known as the DREAM Act is brief and clear.  By giving protection to children, teenagers and young adults, the DREAM Act addresses most aspects of the problems faced by undocumented students.  

6. - The DREAM Act has been introduced in both houses of Congress (in the Senate S.729 and on the House of Representatives H.R. 1751).  It has been assigned to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.  

What is

the Dream

Act?

S.729 and  H.R. 1751

The Dream Act is a proposal that has been discussed in Congress since 2001. It has been re-introduced every year but unfortunately has never made it for a full vote.

Under the provisions of this bill, those immigrants who came to the United States as children and are part of our communities are eligible for temporary legal status under certain conditions. 

The students need to have been in the US  five years prior to the passage of the legislation and under the age of 16 at the time of entry.

Upon completion of two years of post-secondary education or two years of military service, if the applicant demonstrates good moral character, he or she can apply for permanent residency.

This is the golden opportunity many students hope for.

DREAM Act.

A play in one act by James E. Garcia

Free Presentation!!!

February 3, 2010

 Catalina Elementary

 7:15 pm

FREE and Open to the Public

______www.newcarpa.org______

REASONS TO VOTE THE

DREAM ACT NOW:

It is written.  It is in Congressional committees. It must be implemented in six months from passage.

It will stop deportation of students immediately. (It protects high school as well as college students from deportation without cause.)

It will enable the students to go to work and help their families while comprehensive immigration reform is being written and fought over for months in Congress.   The students will be at work while the complicated process of immigration reform is implemented.

It will free the students of fear and enable them to work and study and promote CIR. 

The students have been waiting for this since 2001.   They have hoped and prayed and worked for the DREAM ACT. 

The students are desperate when they finishhigh school or college and cannot go to work.   They cannot use their diplomas and degrees to work and support themselves and their families.  They exist in limbo and in increasing poverty.

It will be a tragedy for those who are deported while we wait for Congress to act on the DREAM ACT and CIR.  They will be strangers in a land they no longer remember.  It will be at least 10 years before they can come back and bring the benefits of their education to this country.

Those who graduate and have stayed out of trouble should be lauded in public as role models for younger students, not criminalized for actions of others and having to hide in the shadows of our communities.

Congress should pass the

DREAM ACT now!