Aug
16
2010
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Aug
11
2010
DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Ivan Nikolov
The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act.
Earlier this week, I wrote to you about the latest DREAM Act student currently facing deportation. As part of the DREAM Now Series, here we print his letter to President Barack Obama to stop his deportation, which could happen at any moment.
The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act.
Dear Mr. President,
In May, my mother and I were picked up in an immigration raid in our home. I was told that in 2002, when I was just 12, I missed a court date at which I was ordered removed from this country. I’ve been in detention for three months, now, awaiting my deportation. My mother was deported on Friday, August 6th, and I’m set to be deported any day now.
I immigrated to the United States from Russia when I was just 11 years old. My mother married a U.S. citizen who is the only father I know. I do not remember much about the journey to America, nor did I even know I was undocumented until I was 15 and asked my parents about getting a driver’s permit. This is the only country I know as my home and I don’t know what I would do if I were deported, now.
I am a long-time resident of Michigan. I have a fiancée who has been with me for over three years. It would be a great loss to her and to my community if I were deported.
In Russia, it would be difficult for me to survive. I barely speak the language and I have very little family there. I dream of studying film or music. I love my pets and my many friends in the U.S. I want to be able to see them again. Please take action now to stop my deportation.
Sincerely,
Ivan Nikolov
You can fax DHS Secretary Napolitano here, asking her not to deport Ivan.
Apr
07
2009
Colorado Fails to Support DREAMers
Last Week I wrote about how some states were pushing DREAM Act like measures through their legislatures. One of those states was Colorado. However yesterday, the dreams of undocumented students in The Centennial State were squashed thanks to Democrats in the state senate joining with Republicans to vote against the Immigrant Tuition Equity Bill.
Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, said that granting students who are illegal immigrants in-state tuition was like saying “if their parents robbed a bank, their kids could keep the money.”
Though the bill would require students who get the in-state tuition rate to sign an affidavit stating they would seek legal residency, Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, said the affidavit “is worth probably less than the paper it’s printed on.”
In hopes of attracting more Democratic votes, proponents added an amendment that said the bill would only become effective upon passage of the federal DREAM Act. That measure being considered in Congress would provide a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants who serve in the military or attend college in the United States.
It wasn’t enough. Democratic Sens. Morgan Carroll of Aurora, Jim Isgar of Hesperus, Moe Keller of Wheat Ridge, Linda Newell of Littleton and Lois Tochtrop of Thornton voted against the bill.
Carroll, after the debate, referred reporters to a statement on her website that said she could not support the bill “in a climate where the state is cutting or eliminating over $1 billion of benefits to the people and is facing a $300 million cut to higher education, which virtually ends higher education as we know it in the state of Colorado.”
Isgar and Tochtrop made similar comments about cuts to colleges, while Keller declined comment on her vote.
Newell, who was elected in November by a razor-thin margin, simply said “I listened to my constituents” when asked about her vote.
Apr
02
2009
What Have you Done for a DREAM (Act)?
I’ve written extensively on the DREAM Act, to the point of getting linked to by right wing locos, I mean pundits, ok I mean locos (yes I’m waving at you Michelle Malkin). Today other pro-migrant bloggers will also be writing about the DREAM Act, a piece of bipartisan legislation that would permit undocumented students brought to the country as children conditional legal status and eventual citizenship.
Movement on the DREAM Act has been strong, with state officials across the country supporting local measures that pretty much do the same thing as the Federal DREAM Act, allow undocumented students access to in-state tuition rates and a path to citizenship in a country they have grown up in and consider home. Take Colorado for example.
In the Senate and House of Representatives the DREAM Act continues to gain new sponsors which I am sure has to do with grassroots efforts that you can be a part of.
Want to do just one thing for the DREAM Act Today?
1. CALL Pick up the phone and call your Senator or Representative today. Dial 202-224-3121 or use the NCLR guide to be connected to your member of Congress and speak out in favor of the DREAM Act.
Sample message – “Hi, I am calling in support of the DREAM Act (S.729 / H.R. 1751). The DREAM Act lays the groundwork for immigration reform and allows immigrant youth of good moral character to make crucial economic contributions to the United States. To not pass the act at a time when this country needs an economic stimulus and a more educated workforce would be great folly. I urge _________ to become a cosponsor of the DREAM Act.”
Please report back on how your call went.
NILC Factsheet on how DREAM benefits the economy
DREAM Act 2009 Talking Points
Mas aqui :
Dreams Deferred: Criminalizing Immigrant Youth
Daily Dream: 22 New Cosponsors, 10 Ways to Act
Via / Change.org, My Latino News.com