The Dream Act

The Dream Act is about to be shot down by the lame duck congress with the excuse that it takes away jobs from existing citizens and will cost too much to implement when we are looking for ways to cut the deficit. The argument FOR the Dream Act is essentially this:
Over three million students graduate from U.S. high schools every year. Most get the opportunity to test their dreams and live their American story. However, a group of approximately 65,000 youth do not get this opportunity; they are smeared with an inherited title, an illegal immigrant. These youth have lived in the United States for most of their lives and want nothing more than to be recognized for what they are, Americans.
The DREAM Act is a bipartisan legislation ‒ pioneered by Sen. Orin Hatch [R-UT] and Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL] ‒ that can solve this hemorrhaging injustice in our society. Under the rigorous provisions of the DREAM Act, qualifying undocumented youth would be eligible for a 6 year long conditional path to citizenship that requires completion of a college degree or two years of military service.*
I have a dream. It’s bigger than The Dream Act sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch and Dick Durbin. Why not make all teenagers apply for American citizenship as the privilege it should be rather than the natural right it is now? Of all the entitlements that cost the U.S. taxpayer money, the entitlement to citizenship is the greatest. If all residents of the U.S. were required to apply for citizenship the way they have to apply, say, for a driver’s license, we would be giving them the opportunity to earn citizenship rather than merely letting them take it for granted.
I know, it would be a radical idea no country has ever tried, but just think of what it would do to improve the work ethic and ambition among that portion of today’s youth that is lethargic, directionless, and dilly-dallying.
Here are some of the gains we would make as a society:
1. Education would take on more meaning for more students.
2. The military would have a greater and better educated supply of applicants.
3. The labor force would develop the skills industry needs to become competitive.
4. People would become more committed and informed citizens.
5. We would all truly become a nation of immigrants in that we would earn our place.
6. The sense of entitlement index would fall.
7. Productivity would rise.
8. People would be taught early on to “earn” their way.
9. People would learn to assume responsibility much earlier.
10. Citizens would also be more apt to take civic responsibility seriously as well.
The problem with this plan, you might say, is what to do with those who do not qualify. I would suggest that deporting them is not an option, unless we can find a country that would take them off our hands. That’s unlikely, unless we pay some desperate country to take them, but that won't help the long-range need to lower the national deficit, although getting rid of these slackers would cost us less in the long run. Right now the status quo has them in our midst anyway, except they are granted all the rights and privileges of citizenship. By denying them those rights unless they earn them, we would be giving them an incentive to seek citizenship or otherwise be temporarily disenfranchised in ALL respects.
When they turn 19 and have failed to graduate from high school, draft them into boarding “prep” schools and finish the job of educating them by addressing their academic deficiencies and providing the discipline and structure that they and their families did not while they were in regular high school. If this does not work, draft them into a military/community service corps that rebuilds America’s infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Make it a kind of compulsory job corps which they complete when they have their high school diploma. Any of these alternatives will be less expensive than prison, although those will continue to be needed for true criminals.
If only we had an Australia as the British did back in the 18th Century. We could ship them all off to a remote land and be done with them. (Not incidentally, that experiment turned petty criminals into successful pioneers). However, because of the lack of available real estate on the planet in the 21st Century, we will have to deal with the fallout ourselves. I welcome suggestions beyond what I have offered.
Limiting this Dream Act opportunity to a relatively small number of undocumented immigrants seems both unfair to others who might benefit from it and unfair to the productive citizenry of the United States. We need to be more inclusive and draw from a much larger pool that already is bequeathed their citizenship without lifting a finger. It is time to fulfill the dream of JFK who said: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
As an educator of at-risk youth for the last seven years of my 39 year secondary school career, I know how motivated undocumented youth can be. Many of the truly successful students I oversaw were undocumented. Unfortunately, their citizenship path is currently blocked by law. I know they would make models citizens, but currently we are shooting ourselves in the foot by denying them a path to citizenship while letting less willing youth automatically qualify by birth. That’s why I propose a much greater campaign to transform more American youth into the kind of citizens we need and want.
*http://dreamact.info/