NEWS
U.S. Senator Durbin, Mayor-elect Rahm Emmanuel, Cook County Board President Preckwinkle, University Presidents Unite for the DREAM
On Friday, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, presidents of Illinois Universities, community organizations and immigrant youth joined together at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to push for passage of the Illinois and the federal DREAM Acts.
DREAM Act would enable undocumented students – brought to the US as children – to earn legal status by continuing their education or serving in the military. Roughly 95,000 Illinois youths would have benefited from DREAM.
“The momentum behind the DREAM Act in Illinois is a testament to the growing political power of the immigrant rights movement in our state,” said Lawrence Benito, ICIRR Deputy Director. “These political heavyweights joining our movement are an example to the rest of the nation on how we can work together, across party lines, to do what is right for our country. Now we need to work together to make the DREAM real and to stop destroying families through deportation.”
{becssg}events/durbem{/becssg}
“Our immigration laws prevent thousands of young people from fully contributing to our nation’s future,” U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said. “These young people have lived in this country for most of their lives. It is the only home they know. They are American in every sense except their technical legal status.”
Last week, the state Senate passed the Illinois DREAM Act by a bipartisan 45-11 margin, putting Illinois in the lead of the movement to address the injustices caused by our broken immigration system.
The Illinois DREAM Act would establish—using no tax dollars—a privately-funded Illinois DREAM Fund to give scholarships to talented undocumented youth who would otherwise find it difficult to continue on to higher education. Former Alderman Manny Flores pledged to be the first contributor to the Illinois DREAM Fund once enacted, promising $45,000 from his campaign fund.
These politicians join a growing, bipartisan list of Illinois DREAM Act supporters including Senate President John Cullerton, Senate Minority Leader Christine Rodogno, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, and former Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Bill Brady—as well as supporters from Universities, the Federation of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Illinois Council of Community College Presidents.
More than 95,000 Illinois students would benefit from the DREAM Acts, including 22-year-old Carla Navoa who was brought to the United States from the Philippines on a tourist visa when she was just 5 years old. Her family had planned to apply for legal residency with her grandfather as their sponsor, but those hopes were dashed when he passed away. They have been waiting four years since filing a petition to gain legal status with no end in sight. Meanwhile Navoa, who graduated from high school with high honors, has struggled to try to pay for her college education and worries about deportation.