-By Warner Todd Huston
On the steps of the Cannon Building in D.C. a group of Hispanic leaders gathered to express their opposition to the Democrat’s Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2010, the DREAM act.
As this coalition explained it, “The DREAM Act would provide certain minors who are illegal immigrants a path to citizenship if they attend college for two years or join the military. There are an estimated 12-20 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States. Proponents and Democratic leaders have pushed hard for the bill’s passage and a House vote is expected later this week.”
According to congressional statements and the Migration Policy Institute, if passed, the bill could potentially grant amnesty to as many as 2.1 million illegal immigrants. With unemployment officially at 9.8% this is a huge mistake. “I think progressives and conservatives alike can agree on the need to support working and middle-class citizens during a depressed economy,” said Leah Durant, Executive Director of Progressives for Immigration Reform. “This bill would provide in-state tuition rates and residency benefits to illegal immigrant students when many Americans are hurting the most. What makes sense is for America’s jobs and tuition benefits to be reserved for people who are legally entitled to compete for them.”
Rosanna Pulido, Chicagoan and one-time candidate for Congress (5th District) was in attendance and said the following:
The Dream Act is not a dream for most Americans. It is a nightmare! It is a nightmare for the millions who are unemployed, it is a nightmare for the many who have waited to gain United States citizenship legally, and it is a nightmare to those who have played by the rules and pay high rates of college tuition.
Where is Senator Durbin’s sense of justice? Is he just playing politics with the aspirations of hard working Americans? Is he playing politics with Martin Luther King, Jr.? American citizenship is too highly valued to be given away to those who break our laws.
I have a dream. It is a dream different from Senator Durbin’s dream. I have a dream that once and for all we will reward those who follow the law in the United States, not break the law. If you have this same dream, you will oppose the Dream Act with me.
News is that Harry Reid is going to call a cloture vote on the DREAM Act today (De. 8th). Be sure and call your senators and tell them that you do NOT want them to vote “yea” on cloture. You can find you senator’s contact information at the Senate Contact Page.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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