Luis Perez - DREAMer - (almost) Lawyer

Undocumented UCLA law grad is in a legal bind

Hector Tobar - Los Angeles Times


"Luis Perez, who in May became the first undocumented immigrant to graduate from UCLA School of law, came to L.A. from Mexico at the age of 8 and made getting a good education his top priority. But because he's not in the country legally, he may not be able to practice law even if he passes the bar. (photo by Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)" 




'"Most students experience law school as a trade school," said Saul Sarabia, an administrator at UCLA School of Law. "They learn doctrines, rules and apply them to a set of theoretical situations. But in Luis' case, his entire future turns on whether a law can become reality."

The great hope for Perez, and for thousands of others like him, is the Dream Act, a bill that would grant a path to legal residency for undocumented immigrants who graduate from college or serve honorably in the military.

President Obama has called on Congress to pass the Dream Act before the end of the year.

Unfortunately, there are also many media commentators, and an army of Internet scribes, dedicated to slurring the name of people like Luis Perez. They want to convince you that the Dream Act is a bad idea.

For them, no insult is too extreme, no stereotype too crude, because of the single word they can attach to Perez's name: illegal. They make up false statistics, and focus on the crimes of the few to taint the many'...more