The DREAM Act

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The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, also known as the DREAM Act (s.1291), was first introduced in 2001 by Dick Durbin and Orrin Hatch. It meant to create a process that would allow immigrants to apply for conditional residency, which would then lead to permanent residency. This proposition would grant citizenship to young individuals, under the age of sixteen, that have gone through the American education system in good standing, with no criminal record. The DREAM Act failed to pass both House and Senate on numerous occasions, due to opposition against granting citizenship to illegal immigrants; however, in 2010 a revised version was installed that was approved by the House, but not the Senate. Nevertheless, the DREAM …show more content…
Through his executive action, Obama intended to shorten the achievement gap present in the undocumented community. The DACA program would grant two-year amnesty, for students within the program only if the criteria is met: under the age of thirty-one -having entered at the age of sixteen-, with a clean criminal record, pursuing education or work (“A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: DACA and the DREAM Act”). DACA was implemented as a placeholder, in hopes to alleviate the current crisis that many undocumented youth faced, at least, until Congress could pass cohesive immigration reform. Though the DACA program does not provide access to legal permanent status, it did offer potential for youth to mobilize economically and socially. According to GeorgeTown Law, there is “estimated that there are 1.9 million potential participants in the United States, and the USCIS has accepted 844,931 applications as of June, 2016; the primary country of origin for DACA participants is Mexico” (Byrne,“Promoting a child rights-based approach to immigration in the United States”). Of these 800,000 recipients, 14% are home to the Los Angeles Metro area, nearly 70,000 students, making Los Angeles the city with the highest concentration of Dreamer beneficiaries in the United States (“A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: DACA and the DREAM