Albuquerque Journal
Written by Bruce Daniels -
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to revisit illegal-alien students legislation.
It had become an under-the-radar cause celebre for both sides of the immigration debate, dominating talk shows and flooding senatorial offices with e-mails, phone calls and faxes from supporters and opponents alike.
But it appears that the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act -- the so-called DREAM Act -- is dead for now, but not for long, according to today's Washington Times.
The DREAM Act was attached by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., as an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act and would have given legal status to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, according to the Times report.
"We will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who took the amendment off the table late Wednesday. "I'm going to do my utmost to do it by Nov. 16." The proposal was strongly opposed by some Republicans, like Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who objected to mixing the immigration issue with the defense bill and who vowed a filibuster to defeat the measure if the Democrats insisted on bringing it up, the Times reported.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., is among the co-sponsors of Durbin's amendment, and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., hadn't publicly said how he would vote.
Republicans late Wednesday moved to cut off debate on H.R. 1585, the Defense Authorization Act, leaving Democrats with practically no options for inserting Durbin's amendment, the Times reported. The amendment would have given conditional legal status to illegal aliens who were brought to the United States before age 16, have been in the country at least five years and have graduated from high school or obtained an equivalency degree, according to a report in Wednesday's Houston Chronicle.
After six years, they could become permanent legal residents if they have served in the U.S. military for at least two years or complete at least two years of college, and after another five years could apply for U.S. citizenship, the Chronicle reported.
The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that slightly more than 1 million high school graduates and children still in school could gain legal status under the legislation, the Chronicle said.
The DREAM Act had become the top priority for Hispanic and pro-immigration groups and drew equally strong opposition from those who want to crack down on illegal immigration, according to the Times report. Anti-illegal immigration activists -- fearful that the bill is a backdoor way of granting amnesty to thousand, if not millions of illegal immigrants -- have called it the "Nightmare Act."
Supporters, who have sought passage of the legislation since 2001, have said that passage of the amendment would remove thousands of young people from legal limbo and that it is unfair to punish children for the illegal actions of their parents.
Durbin himself signaled his fading hopes for the amendment earlier this week, telling the Houston Chronicle he had modified the original bill in hopes of meeting Republican objections, but said he didn't think it was enough.
Durbin tried to win extra support by altering the bill to cap eligibility to those younger than 30 and by eliminating a mandate that states offer in-state tuition to those who qualified for legal status, according to today's Washington Times report.
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