[Blog]

Week after week I sit in my office and listen to young men and women tell me about the problems they face, where the alien spouse or boyfriend was born abroad and brought to the United States as a young child. They then grew up here, went to High School, settled down, had some kids, and now face deportation. Why? Well, because the law was changed in 1996 to require them to show “extremely unusual hardship” to those kids if they are deported. While there is no real definition of this level of hardship - it is clear that it requires a showing of hardship that is rare. In other words, most of these young people won’t qualify for relief and so, even though they have been here for years, playing by the rules, enriching our society, and building new families here. It also makes little sense to send people educated in the United States to other countries who will then reap the benefit of their knowledge.

There are potential solutions out there right now in the United States House and Senate, that you can call on your representatives to support. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, also known as H.R. 1751, the “American Dream Act”, and S.729, the “DREAM Act of 2009” is currently pending. For more information, please go to this website.

These kids deserve a path - they were brought here against their will as children, often in dangerous ways, and it should not be held against them. In order to qualify for permanent residence under the DREAM Act, they would have to have come to the United States before they  turned 16, been here for five years since entry, complied with selective service requirements, not be younger than 12 or older than 35 when the bill is enacted, have graduated from a U.S. High School, been accepted into an institution of higher education or obtained their GED, and be of good moral character.  Once approved, the alien would receive conditional residence for six years, during which time they would need to establish that they have completed two years of either college education or military service.