Maryland Passes Its DREAM Act

In the final hours of the state’s 2011 legislative season, Maryland made history when it became the twelfth state to pass a law granting undocumented immigrant students the right to pay in-state tuition at the state’s four-year colleges.

The new law, which Gov. Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign, will allow students to be recognized as residents of their home states regardless of their immigration status and pay in-state tuition at Maryland’s public four-year colleges if they clear three hurdles: graduate from a Maryland high school, complete 60 credits at a Maryland community college and prove they and their parents paid income taxes for the prior three years.

On Monday night, the vote hit a last minute snag when it was sent back to a conference committee after the Senate refused to clear new House amendments. Under the House revision, which passed last Friday, undocumented immigrant students will be considered out-of-state applicants during the admissions process. Maryland reserves spots for state residents, which undocumented immigrant students will not be allowed to access. Once accepted and if eligible, undocumented immigrant students can then pay in-state tuition.

The second amendment made it mandatory for undocumented immigrant males to register with the Selective Service in order to take advantage of in-state tuition eligibility. The third, which would have made undocumented immigrant students exempt from showing income tax returns if they had family who were too ill to do so, was what nearly derailed the bill, reported the University of Maryland’s Diamondback Online. At the last minute that amendment was taken out. The bill passed both chambers without one Republican vote.

“It’s about treating high school graduates the same,” State Sen. Victor Ramirez told University of Maryland’s Diamondback Online. Ramirez authored the bill.

“They live in the state of Maryland, they’ve gone through our system and their parents are paying taxes. And they have the grades to be able to go on to further education.”

In Maryland, the law means the difference between $8,416 in tuition that state residents pay and $24,831 that out-of-state students must pay. The economic burden is compounded by the fact that undocumented immigrant students are barred from accessing federal financial aid, grants or loans.

Texas was the first state to pass an in-state tuition bill in 2001. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 11 states have passed laws granting undocumented immigrant students the right to pay in-state tuition. Both New Mexico and Texas allow undocumented immigrant students to receive financial aid, and California is considering its own DREAM Act that would allow undocumented immigrant students access to state financial aid.

Supporters Haven’t Given Up Of The Dream Act Yet

Daniella Alulema of the New York State Youth Leadership Council has a degree in accounting, but the Ecuadoran native says she can’t put her education into action because of her immigration status. She says she was looking forward to seeing Congress pass the DREAM Act, which would give undocumented youth education opportunities while on a conditional path to citizenship. Advocates of expanded immigrant rights argue the agency’s actions do not match its rhetoric, particularly over enforcement programs that are meant to target “the worst of the worst.” The key immigration enforcement initiative, a finger-print sharing program called Secure Communities, is supposed to help ICE find undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes and may be a danger to others. But the program also nets a large number of undocumented immigrants who are never convicted of crimes, including women who call the police to report domestic violence or people who are brought in on charges that are later dropped.

New York

Both the Senate and Assembly have versions of a bill that would provide benefits to New York undocumented youth who meet certain criteria. The benefits include access to financial aid for higher education, access to driver’s licenses, work authorization and access to health care. To qualify, the young person would have had to come to the U.S. before age 16, lived here for at least two years and apply for the benefits before they turn 35. Unlike its federal counterpart, the bill would not offer those immigrants a path to legal residency. But it would give some of them certain rights now granted only to legal residents and citizens, including the ability to hold some state jobs — a provision that appears to challenge federal laws that prohibit the hiring of undocumented workers.

Coming Out

Several “Coming Out” events were held in New York, including one at Union Square where 20 Dreamers shared their personal immigration stories. The New York State Youth Leadership Council sponsored the Union Square rally and co-wrote the New York Dream Act with Perkins. After the federal Dream Act failed in Congress in December, supporters of the legislation decided to wage the fight state-by-state, hoping to create momentum for national legislation that will offer a pathway to citizenship, in addition to the provisions included in the state bill.

There's no turning back, We will win.We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart . Cesar Chavez

Napolitano: Unpassed DREAM Act Now the Law

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Secretary, confessed last week that the Obama administration will not deport illegal-alien students who would have fallen under the protection of the failed DREAM Act, the amnesty for illegal aliens that traveled under the name of immigration reform.She made the remarks at a webinar and roundtable on border issues sponsored by NDN, a leftist think tank. The Washington Times reported what she said:

“I will say, and can say, that you know what? They are not, that group, if they truly meet all those criteria, and we see very few of them actually in the immigration system, if they truly meet those [criteria], they’re not the priority,” the secretary said at an event sponsored by NDN, a progressive think tank and advocacy group, on the future of the nation’s border policies.

“The reason we set priorities is so that the focus could be on those in the country who are also committing other illegal acts,” she said.

The practical result of the Obama administration’s policy, as she explained it, is that the DREAM Act is now the law even though Congress did not pass it.

Dream, Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, would have given illegal-alien students the chance to become citizens if they joined the military or went to college for two years, provided they jumped the border as minors and lived in the country for five years before the act was passed. The act permitted a gradual process of naturalization, but it was, in fact, an amnesty that would have permitted a massive increase in immigration.

John Morton, Napolitano’s subordinate and the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, echoed her remarks, the Times reported. “If you take a look at the record, people that fit within the confines of the Dream Act, there are in fact very, very few deportations of those kinds of individuals,” he said.

Border Not Out of Control

Napolitano also claimed that the border with Mexico is not out of control. “It is simply inaccurate to state, as too many have, that the border with Mexico is overrun or out of control,” she said. “This statement — I think sometimes it’s made to score some political points — but it’s wrong. It’s just plain wrong.”

Napolitano is wrong, according to Richard Stana, the director of homeland security issues at the Government Accountability Office. Indeed, Stana told the Senate Homeland Security on March 30, a week after Napolitano's assertion, that DHS has little to no control over the border.

Stana reported that DHS can stop illegal aliens on less than 150 miles of the border. Across about another 700 miles, it can catch them only after they have crossed.

Stana based his testimony on the Border Patrol’s own assessment.

Said Stana:

Our preliminary analysis of these Border Patrol data showed that the agency reported a capability to deter or detect and apprehend illegal entries at the immediate border across 129 of the 873 southwest border miles and 2 of the 69 northern border miles. Our preliminary analysis also showed that Border Patrol reported the ability to deter or detect and apprehend illegal entries after they crossed the border for an additional 744 southwest border miles and 67 northern border miles.

As we previously observed in December 2010 and February 2011, and through selected updates, Border Patrol determined in fiscal year 2010 that border security was not at an acceptable level of control for 1,120 southwest border miles and 3,918 northern border miles, and that on the northern border there was a significant or high degree of reliance on enforcement support from outside the border zones for detection and apprehension of cross-border illegal activity. For two-thirds of these southwest miles, Border Patrol reported that the probability of detecting illegal activity was high; however, the ability to respond was defined by accessibility to the area or availability of resources. One-fourth of these northern border miles were also reported at this level. The remaining southwest and northern border miles were reported at levels where lack of resources or infrastructure inhibited detection or interdiction of cross-border illegal activity.

The upshot of Napolitano’s remarks is that the Obama administration has declared the entire country a sanctuary for illegals by unilaterally enacting the unpassed DREAM Act. As well, she simply doesn’t know what is going on at the border.

Remarks Nothing New

Napolitano’s remarks about immigration authorities refusing to deport illegal aliens who do not commit violent crime are nothing new.

Federal immigration officials consider illegal aliens who do not commit crimes — additional crimes, after entering the country illegally and working illegally — mere “administrative” cases and is not interested in pursuing them, it says, because it must focus on illegal aliens who belong in jail.