DREAM ACT

Talks of immigration reform have always been circling with every new administration and every new session of Congress. Every session, a bunch of Congressmen and Senators get together and introduce a new piece of legislation aiming to reform the currently outdated immigration laws. One such piece introduced in March 2009 is called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, more popularly known as the DREAM Act. This Act purports to provide a pathway for legal residency for the thousands of undocumented minors living in the United States. It is a promising piece of legislature if implemented correctly.

The DREAM Act allows undocumented high school graduates with good moral character (which essentially means no criminal background), who arrived in the U.S. as children and have lived here for a continuous period of five years a chance to gain legal status irrespective of their parents’ situation. Qualifying students would receive a six year period, conditional permanent residency status, within which the qualified student must either acquire two years of post-high school education or serve in the uniformed armed services for at least two years. This is an interesting piece of legislation because currently a child who entered the United States with his/her parents can only gain permanent resident status through said parent. With the passage of the Act, hopefully mistakes made by the parents will not be revisited upon their children.