9/23/2010: The “Dream Act” would have given people who were brought into the country illegally as minors by their parents a road to citizenship. Anne Saker of the Oregonian gives one example:
Lopez was 6 weeks old in 1990 when his parents came into the country illegally and settled in Milwaukie. Siovhan Sheridan-Ayala, his Seattle lawyer, said that when Lopez was 9, his parents paid someone to file immigration papers. They never knew that the person never did the work or that a judge later issued a deportation order.
Lopez did well in school and became senior class president at Rex Putnam High School. He got a Social Security number and an Oregon driver’s license. He coached Little League and did hundreds of hours of community service. He aimed to enroll at Portland State to study marketing.
But on Aug. 23, federal authorities picked up Lopez and his father on the 11-year-old deportation order. On Sept. 1, they were shipped to Mexico — where Lopez said Tuesday he doesn’t speak or write the language and cannot find a job.
Lopez’s defenders called a news conference Tuesday at Portland State to urge passage of the bill in Congress, the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors or DREAM Act.
“The country is better for us being here,” said Portland State President Wim Wiewel, who emigrated to the United States as a young man. “We are fools if we do not change the current system.”
And today the Washington post reports:
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday stalled a Senate measure to allow children of undocumented immigrants to get on a path to citizenship, and accused the Obama administration of seeking amnesty for illegal immigrants through administrative changes within the Department of Homeland Security.
Congrats to President Wiewel for speaking out on this, but fools is way too kind.
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