DREAM University!

On July 14, 2010, “the gates to higher education opened wide, as all those Dreams deferred are accepted and cordially invited to Washington DC to be the inaugural class of DREAM University”. Sponsored by United We Dream Network, and preceding the National DREAM Graduation, it is the kick off to a mass mobilization intended to pressure Congress to pass the DREAM Act before the August recess. The youth attending Dream University come from all walks of life, citizens, immigrants and undocumented, and to many, being there represents a hardship and a sacrifice, and indeed a risk. DREAMers came to the U.S. as children and grew up as Americans, and their only wish is to be allowed to fully contribute to the only homeland they know. Many of them dream of serving the military. Others would be teachers, nurses, policemen, doctors and scientists. But due to their immigration status, there is currently no way to make their hopes and dreams come true. DREAM University will provide attendees with the tools and strategies to lobby Congress and increase public support of the cause. If you would like to attend or participate, please contact carlos@unitedwedream.org. If you can not attend you can donate at ourdream2005@gmail.com. Please also take the time to sign the DREAM Act petition if you have not already.

PASS THE DREAM ACT NOW!

ASU president pushes for passage of 'Dream Act'

Arizona State University President Michael Crow is pushing for passage of a federal law that would enable illegal immigrant students to remain in the United States, get their college degrees and have a path to citizenship. The bill, called the "Dream Act," has been introduced several times in recent years but has not been approved by Congress.
Crow sent a two-page letter recently to four U.S. senators who are supporters of the legislation and/or in leadership roles in the Senate. ASU officials said they also sent the letter to some other members of Congress, including those from Arizona.
It was signed by eight other university presidents, including Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California system, and Charles B. Reed, president of the California State University system. The letter urges Congress to pass the measure as stand-alone legislation or as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
The letter says that undocumented high school graduates who want to obtain a college education are being thwarted by the country's dysfunctional immigration system.
"These are students brought to the United States as children, innocents caught up in the middle of the immigration debate," the letter says. "The decision to come to this country was not theirs. But America is the only home they have known and they have spent their young lives being good students, working hard and staying out of trouble."
The letter goes on to detail the benefits of a college education: higher wages, lower crime rates and less likely to end up on public assistance.
Over the past year, various college presidents have come out in support of the Dream Act, including Harvard President Drew Gilpin, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutman and Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, among others.
The latest version of the "Dream Act," introduced in March 2009 would apply to people under age 35 who entered the U.S. before age 16 and have been in the country at least five consecutive years. They have to graduate from a U.S. high school, or have obtained a GED or be accepted at a college or university. They also have to be of "good moral character," although the legislation doesn't define exactly what that means. Students would get conditional permanent residency, meaning they couldn't be deported for being here illegally while they are in school. They would eventually be able to apply for legal residency and then to be a U.S. citizen.
The letter signed by the college presidents asks Congress to go a step further and allow Dream Act students to be eligible for federal financial aid. Illegal immigrants currently cannot get federal financial aid, such as federal student loans or Pell grants, to attend school.
The letter was also signed by presidents from the University of Washington, the University of Minnesota, the University of Utah, Washington State University, the University of New Mexico and Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich.
The letter was sent to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the sponsor of the 2009 Dream Act legislation, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana). Durbin sponsored the legislation and Lugar and Schumer are co-sponsors.
crossposted from LiveWireBlog/azcentral.com

Call to Action: Mass DREAM Mobilization in Washington D.C. on July 19th-21st

The time to mobilize and demand the dream act is now. We have a short window of opportunity to pass the Dream Act in congress. Over the course of the last two years we have been successful in building up our collective base and now more than ever, we need to show our collective power as immigrant youth. We have been able to accomplish many things including securing 40 co sponsors in the Senate and develop Dream Teams in places that have never had a base before. All of this work, all of the petition signatures you gathered and sent in are now bearing fruit. All of the rallies you attended to meet new people, all of the lobby visits and relationships you built are now critical for passage of the Dream Act. Make your work count now! Come to Washington D.C. between July 19^th and the 21^st for three days of escalation and action on Capitol Hill.

Join us for a mass mobilization for the DREAM Act on Capitol Hill from July 19-21st

Dont know how to get started? Follow the steps below to get started

Individuals:

If you are an individual:

talk to friends and family and get them to come to D.C. with you.
• Check out the Dream Map to see if there any youth projects near your area and contact them to see if you they will be mobilizing to DC

Youth Groups

If you are working in a group try to organize a caravan to D.C. There are several being planned across the country. Register on our website and we can follow up with you by connecting you to a group near you.

Organization

If you are a part of an organization try to organize a bus delegation to D.C! Register your organization on our registration form and we will follow up with more information and logistics.

REGISTER NOW

Get Ready Cause We're Coming Back

Two weeks ago, over 200,000 people of all colors, creeds, and socioeconomic levels, from all over our nation, marched on Washington to deliver a simple message: Mr. President, members of Congress, we want the change you promised us.



That such a large amount of people should gather in a peaceful and orderly manner is an accomplishment in and of itself. We have testament of the power of the march in Nezua's moving, beautiful video. It was an amazing experience for all that participated;our own DREAM Act cohort was represented by hundreds of students from all over the nation. For myself, it was a chance to finally meet face to face many of the amazing DREAMers I have gotten to "know" online over the past two years.


However, if like me you surfed TV and the net that night looking for coverage,to judge the amount of coverage the national media gave the March for America, it might as well have been a few hundred rather than hundreds of thousands. Insulting when you consider the coverage given to every half assed teabagger gathering. But healthcare legislation passed that night, so we ended the day with hope.

But right now, my patience and hope is wearing a little thin. While Congress keeps playing politics with people's lives, detentions and deportations are on the rise, and we have tragedies like Gustavo Rezende's; as his hopes and dreams died so did his will to live. I will not stand for any more losses. So get ready,Mr. President and members of Congress, because we are coming back on May 1st. No more stalling. We'll be at your doorstep. We won't slow back down, we won't be pacified with vague promises. We will keep rallying,writing and calling until you stand up and do the job for which you were elected.Fulfill your promise and PASS THE DREAM ACT!

In 12 more days, Mr. President

The time has come to collect on your promises, President Obama.
WE answered your call. WE believed. WE stumped for you and we
voted for you. WE delivered, Mr. President- but have you?


You promised us change within the first 100 days.
We have passed that mark four times over and seen absolutely nothing
except increased raids and deportations. We’ve had enough
of waiting and enough of being put off with vague promises of immigration reform.
We’ve had enough of having friends and loved ones living
a half-life in the shadows because of a broken immigration
system that has failed both immigrants and our communities.
We are sick of the labels, lies and manipulation attempts to
splinter the country into factions divided along race and
class lines. We helped bring your dream to life, Mr. President;
it’s your turn to bring our DREAM to fruition.
In twelve days, we are making a stand
and making our voices heard loud and clear. We are coming together
brown and white, old and young, queer and straight, rich and poor,
from all around the country. Our message is simple:
we demand that Congress take up immigration reform NOW,
and pass the DREAM Act as the first meaningful step in the process.

Why the anti immigration movement fears the DREAM Act

Just yesterday I watched a video of the Trail of Dreams walkers as they joined a NAACP protest of a KKK rally. The white robes said the same ugly old things they always say; onlookers shook their heads in dismay. The hate and the ignorance went hand in hand with the tired old arguments these anti-immigration and nativist groups trot out to justify their racist crusade. And as usual they fall flat in the face of reality.
To claim that immigrants, documented or not, are guilty of having a free ride on the back of taxpayers is asinine. Immigrants pay sales taxes property taxes and regular taxes; the undocumented simply do not use a large majority of the public services they help fund. The same holds for crime waves on undocumented immigrant; in actuality they are more likely to be victimized and not seek help from the police. Lastly, to assert that they steal jobs from “real Americans” is false as well - in many cases they create more jobs and even rescue communities from economic downturn.

DREAM Act eligible students represent the absolute opposite of every stereotype ever dredged up by anti immigrant wingnuts .Remember, when we talk about DREAM Act students, we are talking about young students who exhibit the best of what we expect from all our children: academic success and the desire to succeed even further. They have defied the odds and many accomplish the highest honors. They are not responsible for their undocumented status, having come to the US with their parents as children; to attempt to punish them for something that was entirely out of their hands smacks of persecution and racism. There is ample proof of the benefits that a community and the nation as well stand to reap when the handicap of undocumented status is removed from these students and they are permitted to fully participate and contribute to society. And so DREAMers are the nativists’ worst nightmare, and the best argument for defeating this newest wave of anti immigrant sentiment that is sweeping our country.
We need to ask people to check their real-life experiences against the negative rhetoric they hear on the media. Americans need to answer these questions: have you personally lost a job, been victimized by, or been disadvantaged by an undocumented person? The honest answer will uniformly be NO. Look around you America, rip the scales of ignorance from your eyes. Demand that Congress stop holding the lives of thousands of student hostage and take the first step to fix our broken immigration system by passing the DREAM Act.

Why I dream of change

I'm Puerto Rican, so I can't call myself an immigrant. But I have lived as an immigrant abroad, I have been the other , the outsider looking in, and know very well how hard it is, getting used to life in a place where everything is strange. Picture how many more magnitudes of difficulty are involved then when your hands are tied by a lack of papers.
I've had the pleasure and the privilege to meet and befriend people from many different countries and from all walks of life, and through their stories I was educated to the reality just how difficult it can be to immigrate to the US. I thought i had heard it all: the endless waiting, the requests for document after document, the ridiculously convoluted rules, the fees, the crooked lawyers that stiff you out of your savings and produce no results. Yet was has fired me up the most is the plight of the undocumented students brought here as children or infants. The fact that you could grow up, go to school and strive for excellence and to get to the top and then have your life come to a dead screeching halt seemed surreal. But its all too true for thousands of youths across the land. Motto schooled me in his reality, and introduced me to many other students, who like himself, are high achieving, hard working, and have defied huge odds to become budding community leaders. It is that drive, that spirit to not only improve their personal situation but to change things for the better, ensuring that no one has to run the rat maze of obstacles with which they have been forced to deal that inspired me to become actively involved in the push for immigration reform. I refuse to stand by and do nothing while the gifts and talents of people who have enriched their communities and schools, who have shown so much promise, go to waste. I can't stand the racists and bald opportunists who rant about "criminal"and "illegal" when the topic of immigration is discussed and whose only solution is "deport them all!". They have absolutely no clue about the sacrifices, fear, worries, and hardships that have been surmounted by Dreamers and their families. I don't want to see one more family torn apart, or see any more Dreamers placed under the threat of what amount to exile.
This process has not been without personal cost. My family disdains politics, looks askance at my activism, and is pessimistic about the effects of our campaigns, they are offended by the buttons and the t-shirts; they've gone as far as to try and curtail the extent of my involvement. It is hard going when your allegiances are questioned. But I take my inspiration from each victory, whether large or small, and from the amazing tireless pro migrant community. And most of all, from all the Dreamers. They keep me going.
And this keeps me going too.