The Reality of the DREAM

Talya Hezi, UC-Berkeley student and BAMN member
Opinion Article
October 23, 2007

Rightfully so, many leaders have been pushing for the enactment of the DREAM Act in California -- an act that would encourage immigrant youth, through the eligibility of state financial aid, to pursue higher education after attending three years of high school in California. Unfortunately, opponents of this act have been slyly besmirching its reputation through improbable, racist, and illogical accusations employed to stir unreasonable hatred towards all immigrants.

The current U.S. Government has largely neglected funding for public schools; consequently, tuition has risen for public colleges and universities and robust educational assistance programs have become scarce. This lack of investment, not the children of undocumented immigrants, in educational institutions, is what causes US students to yield lower standardized test scores. Any argument that bases lower test scores on the enrollment of immigrant children, or an increase in minority students, inherently asserts that education can only be improved if offered to a select few. Furthermore, such a racist argument implies that immigrant children have no skills to contribute in a classroom setting and therefore dilute the educational experience. How can we trust future generations with our well being if only a small percentage of them receive a reliable education? When so much depends on the decisions of our successors as future government and business leaders, we cannot allow ourselves to brand education as a privilege. We must consider it a right.

In another dirty attempt to agitate California residents into a panic, opponents of the DREAM Act blame immigrants for using the resources that, essentially, keep them alive. One such article claimed, “newcomers . . . exacerb[ate] our energy and water shortages”. In statistics collected by the US Energy Information Administration, industrial and commercial entities use 51% of U.S. energy, while residential homes only use 21%. Furthermore, of that 21%, the middle- class single-family homes use 80% of that energy while multifamily complexes, the dwellings of most immigrants, only use 15%.

On the subject of water, the EPA declared Americans waste the most water by over watering their lawns and gardens. And although opponents of the DREAM Act would like people to believe otherwise, most undocumented immigrants do not have a lawn to water and therefore most of them can be excluded from this “environmental abuse.” Community and State resources is an important factor in determining policies, but who and what uses the most resources must be first taken into account. Claiming that immigrants exacerbate the use of resources is a gross and disingenuous overstatement.

Aside from the reality that the children of hard working immigrants deserve the dream of college, the DREAM Act will serve to benefit society as a whole in exactly those issues that opponents complain about. For the majority of undocumented immigrants, college is, frankly, beyond their reach financially. Without scholarships, subsidized loans, grants, or work study, a low-income student cannot manage a college tuition. However, if given the opportunities that the DREAM Act offers, many of these students will begin to enroll in Medical school, Law school, and Engineering/Science colleges. The work force of these graduates will help in the development of a brighter future for alternative energy, smarter technology, better domestic and foreign policies, and more diverse teaching in public schools. Denying this potential not only to these deserving students, but to our nation will severely cripple our overall national competence in the future.

Many of the ideologies behind refusing immigration rights to immigrants stem from the idea that those policies will encourage greater immigration. However, there is a fundamental element that this ideology does not take into account, and that is the power of the human spirit to aspire to a better life. According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), a total of 383 immigrants died trying to cross the border in 2005 (and this can serve as a rough average for every year since 1995). Of that number, 40% died of exposure; however, it is unclear what caused the rest of the deaths. Nevertheless, the dangers of illegal immigration are apparent to any immigrant yet he risks this cost because his home country imposes a worse fate. Given this appalling statistic, how can we expect illegal immigration to completely stop when some immigrants face oppression, starvation, and persecution? Not surprisingly, those immigrants would rather die with hope than stay in their own countries. Whether we grant undocumented immigrants their rights or not, they will keep crossing the border. Therefore the decision we must make is one between accepting the fact that tougher borders will not discourage illegal immigrants from trying to cross, and turning our backs on human rights and ignorantly blaming immigrants for the entire world’s problems. In this decision we must remember that whatever we choose will reflect our civility and commitment to human rights as a nation. A choice to deny education to an able and deserving generation will inevitably create a second-class sub-citizen population. Furthermore, denying the DREAM Act and other immigrant rights will not stop immigration; it will only shame the benevolent reputation and ideologies that we, as Americans, seek to present to the world.