DREAM Act

SEN Lindsey Graham:

You're trying to check a box with the Hispanic voters on the Dream Act . . . this is using the defense bill in a partisan fashion that hasn't been done before.

The DREAM Act would allow a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought here as children if they were to provide military service or complete higher education (simplified explanation). This seems, to me, to be a fair minded and decent thing to do. There is no statute of limitations on illegal immigration (putting it on par with rape and murder), even though a lot of people never made the choice to break the law themselves. They were brought here illegally by their parents.

People would have us believe that ALL illegal immigrants came over as adults, but that's simply not true. So, what are these people supposed to do? They've grown up in America, they've grown up thinking they're Americans and find out, only as teenagers, that they're not. Go "back" to where they "came from"? They have no "back" to go to...their families are here. Their friends are here. Their lives are here.

So, they go to college or serve our country in the military and gain citizenship. We kill two birds with one stone-we ensure assimilation into the "American way" by civic participation and also push the children of immigrants to better themselves, and their progeny, by asking them to get an education.

I can't see anything wrong with this.

But Graham's assertion that this is just to gain favor with Hispanics is ridiculous. Anyone who believes in immigration reform and that we need to solve the problem of illegal immigration should be a fan of this Act. How Graham is not, I don't understand. But if he thinks voting against it will hurt Republicans with Hispanic voters (who apparently vote in a bloc), he is probably correct, but only insofar as Republicans CAN lose favor with Hispanics, whom they've continually demonized over the years as un-American to begin with. If you've no support from Hispanics to begin with, what is there to lose?