This is in response to Kyle’s questions he asked on the Shattered Dreams post. I have decided to write a separate post because the questions he asked are very thought provoking and really should not be buried in the comments section.

Surely after the DREAM Act is put into practice and if it truly is horrendous, can’t we focus our activism on that?

The political debate over undocumented immigrants in the US has largely ignored the plight of undocumented children. This ranges from education to health care. In this time of crisis, it is critical to have accurate information about the characteristics of the unauthorized population. It is estimated that the number of undocumented immigrants living in the country range from 11.5 to 12 million according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The number of children of undocumented immigrants living in this country account for 1.8 million, or 16 percent. These are the numbers that have been widely cited by advocates and policymakers.

According to Jeff Passel of the Urban Institute, the affected population nationally is about 65,000 undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States five years or longer who graduate from high school each year would be eligible for conditional status; however, he also stated that number is too high.

…our previous estimate of approximately 65,000 undocumented alien high school graduates under age 21 who have lived in the United States for 5 years or longer enrolled in college should be considered substantially too high.

Using this information to convert the CPS data into a national estimate, estimated college enrollment probably amounts to about 7,000–13,000 undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for 5 years or longer (and have graduated from U.S. high schools.)

The difficulty in estimating the size of the undocumented population, coupled with the misleading and inaccurate reporting of high school dropouts and graduation rates in state after state, year after year, has, until recently, kept the public largely unaware of a serious educational and civil rights crisis. The fact is undocumented students face various challenges as they move along the academic pipeline. Once again, as I mentioned before I FULLY SUPPORT the educational component of the DREAM Act. We should all support the idea that higher education should be for all students, both documented and undocumented. However, I feel compelled to inform people on how the military will take the full advantage of the military component of the DREAM Act.

I understand the argument that is being made on how this Act could provide an incentive to continue their schooling and finish college, eventually contributing their education to the society and economy of the state. Many of these students came to the United States with their parents and have lived in the country for more than five years. A large percentage has either graduated from a public high school or obtained their GEDs. A report by the Texas House Research Organization showed that not helping students join college results in much greater costs to the state and further contributes to a uneducated work force. Yet only 15% of African Americans and 11% of Latina/o’s age 25 or older have a bachelor’s degree. For low-income students, regardless of race, on average only 23 out of 100 will even enroll in college.

The fact that the Dream Act was offered as an amendment to the Defense Department’s appropriations bill should have raised red flags. The military is no fool. They are aware that struggling K-12 public schools, dramatic increases in college tuition rates, and decreases in higher education funding have caused a leak in the pipeline for many of today’s youth. They are also aware of how states who passed a state version if the DREAM Act are doing.

But lets look at the facts, since 2001, there have been ten states which, have passed laws allowing undocumented students who attend and graduate from in-state high schools to qualify for in-state college. In 2001, California and Texas were the first states to enact legislation allowing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Following suit were Utah, Washington, New York, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, and Nebraska. In an analysis of the 10 states, Roberto G. Gonzales, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Irvine, found that they

“have not experienced a large influx of new immigrant students that ‘displaces’ native-born students or added financial burdens on their educational systems. In fact, these measures tend to increase school revenues by bringing in tuition from students who otherwise would not be in college.”

In CA, after the state passed Assembly Bill 540, 1,620 undocumented students were enrolled in the University of California and California State University systems in 2005. And in TX, in 2004, only 3,792 students were attending public colleges. The total number of students paying in-state tuition only amounted to 0.36% of the 1,054,586 students attending public colleges and universities in Texas. Gonzales also found that in other states that offered in-state tuition benefits, the number of undocumented students taking advantage remains low.

I know that one would argue that these students would benefit once they receive state or federally sponsored financial aid after they are granted their legal status. Just recently, the College Board released a report stating that Federal Student Aid to undergraduates shows slow growth, while tuition prices continue to increase.

Nearly half a million students received awards in 2006 under two new federal student grant programs. Though higher than the previous year, total federal grant funding to undergraduates was still lower in 2006-07 than it was three years earlier, after adjusting for inflation.

While the numbers are dismal, the one group capitalizing on the difficulties facing Latino youth are the armed services. Military recruiters have been preying upon the most vulnerable and economically challenged of our African, Latino, Native American, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Pacific Islander communities. To put it simply, as long as the armed forces target people of color excessively, we will continue to die disproportionately in this unjust war.

According to the New York Times, the number of Latino/a enlisting in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent from 2001 to 2005. The military will use any means to accomplish their goal of herding Latinos into the military corral. Latino youth is seen as a commodity, a group to be won and profited from, as opposed to living breathing people with futures.

One would argue that it is impossible to enlist if a person where to drop out, but what is not widely reported is how the military would benefit from the DREAM Act. In the Iraq war, citizenship would continue to be used as a recruiting tool aimed specifically at young immigrants, who are told that by enlisting, they will be able to quickly get citizenship for themselves and their entire families. As political conditions worsen for Latino families, many young Latinos will be unable to resist this offer. If one were to look closely, the DREAM Act would have required the student to register with the Department of Homeland Security, but, what is not mentioned in the Act is whether the empire would deport their parents? Even worse, the DREAM Act was also unclear as to what would happen to the siblings who do not meet the Act’s requirements.

While the military states that it only enlist qualified people, in truth, the military are signing up a large majority of new military recruits from GED programs and their Delayed Entry Program (DEP), which operates in high schools. Recruiters operate in high schools trying to get children as young as 14 to sign up for the military’s DEP, which allows them to finish high school before going on active duty.

Under the program, these young “men and women,” as recruiters are trained to call them, are targeted, tested, gifted, video-gamed, recruitment-faired and career-counseled into enlisting before they turn 18. They are also paid $2,000 for every friend they talk into signing up with them, and, until recently, were paid $50 for every name they brought in to a recruiter. The DEP website provides tips on how students can assist recruiters in signing up their friends. The student can:

• Provide your recruiter with names and numbers of anyone you know who is considering joining the military.
• Obtain the names and numbers of people who work with you or attend places you frequent and the best time to talk to them.
• Obtain the names and numbers of friends or acquaintances who sit with you in classes.
• Help your recruiter by screening his/her lists.
• Accompany your recruiter to places your friends normally hang out and make introductions.

For those who already are serving in the military, the immigration law clearly states what would happen if an immigrant where to decide to be a conscientious objector - “No person who … was a conscientious objector who performed no military, air, or naval duty … or refused to wear the uniform, shall be regarded as having served honorably or having been separated under honorable conditions.” According to military law experts, this means that although applying for conscientious objector status is not grounds for a dishonorable discharge, but attempting to act on it is considered dishonorable behavior. In other words, a person must engage in combat despite their beliefs or receive a dishonorable discharge which would have been a violation of the DREAM Act.

Because No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires states to implement a school accountability system based on the absolute test scores of their students, this law has weakened the incentives for states to develop school accountability systems based on value-added measures of student performance. Under NCLB, schools with disadvantaged students generally face harsher sanctions than other schools, which some say is the cause for the dismal graduation rate.

We are losing an unacceptably high number of young people to education failure and labor market detachment. Communities are losing the battle to successfully educate huge numbers of youth. This means that the majority of Latino youth, most of which have been tracked out of the college system, will see military enlist as the only viable option.

Our students and our communities as a whole deserve full and immediate legalization without having to serve in the military. If DREAM Act is once again introduced in Congress again, it is important that we demand that the military option of the DREAM Act be replaced by a community service option, similar to the previous versions.

As Kyle has mentioned, I have not wavered from my principles. The teachings of Gandhi have a major influence in my own beliefs. I admired that he did not balk from taking his principles to their most logical extremes because he deeply felt they were an expression of the deepest love for all humans. He believed that in order to convince opponents of their injustice, one might have to suffer or die in order to win one’s own freedom. To do this it means standing firmly behind one’s ideals.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Related posts

• The Green Card Draft: One Immigrant’s Nightmare is Uncle Sam’s DREAM (27)
• The Few, the Proud, the Military’s “Green Card” Soldiers (6)
• Shattered Dreams (7)
• Photos From Labor Day Protest of CCA (0)
• Houston Processing Center: The U.S. Ministry of Freedom (11)

Tags: activism, Dream Act, Immigration, undocumented immigrants |  Print This Post |
functional