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By
Josh Bernstein
Director of Federal Policy
Earlier this year, immigrant students and advocate
supporters of policies favoring them met in an invitation-only “summit”
in Kansas City, Kansas, to review strategies and to organize themselves
into an effective network.
In all, the summit was attended by about 65
individuals from more than 20 states representing more than 30
organizations. The participating organizations have been leading the
growing efforts in favor of the DREAM Act and in-state tuition efforts
in their states but had never before come together as a single entity.
(More information on the DREAM Act is available on our
Immigrant Student
Adjustment/DREAM Act web page.)
Participants emerged from the summit having agreed
on the outline of an ambitious joint work plan for the year and on a
“United We DREAM” structure for implementing the work plan. The
structure not only will establish a communication and decision-making
mechanism for DREAM-related work conducted prior to the proposed
legislation’s enactment, it also will be critical to the transition
towards implementation of the DREAM Act if and when it is enacted as
expected.
The immediate work plan includes a commitment to
plan and carry out in-district visits by students and allies with more
than 100 targeted members of Congress and two major national action days
designed to call attention to the circumstances faced by these students
and the need for change. Also planned are a “yearbook” with 20 stories
provided from each organization, and a central website.
To create an infrastructure for the work ahead,
participants divided themselves into five regions and made regional
plans. The work will be coordinated at the national level by a steering
committee composed of youth and advocate representatives from each
region, plus some core national groups.
The United We DREAM Coalition holds promise on
several levels, from encouraging the development of new leaders, to
information-sharing, planning, and joint action. It should be noted
that fulfilling the promise the DREAM Act will provide when enacted will
likely be even more challenging than the work involved in getting it
passed. Of the one million–plus potential beneficiaries of the DREAM
Act, more than 700,000 are currently in elementary or secondary schools,
able to benefit from it only if they graduate from school and continue
on to college or the military. To give an idea of the challenge,
currently only 40 percent of undocumented Latino males complete high
school.
The Jan. 8–9 meeting was sponsored by the National
Immigration Law Center. In addition to NILC, the planning committee included
the National Council of La Raza, the Center for Community Change, the
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the New York
Immigration Coalition, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee
Rights, the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium,
El Centro, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, and the Coalition for Humane
Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
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