COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Youth of Color
Immigrants' dream nightmare for critics
Kirsten Scharnberg, Chicago Tribune
October 7, 2007
Everything about Rosa screams overachieving high school senior: her 3.7 grade point average, her hectic schedule of cross-country practices and community theater rehearsals, her hopes of working her way through college to become a registered nurse.But Rosa, 17, a soft-spoken honors student, worries every day about something the typical American teenager never has to think about: being deported because she is an undocumented immigrant.
"Some days I feel overwhelmed by it -- just hopeless," said the young woman who came to Chicago with her parents at age 7. "But other days I have a lot of hope that things will be OK, that everything will work out somehow."
Under new and controversial legislation championed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Rosa's dreams -- graduating near the top of her class and attending college -- could change her status as an illegal immigrant. The Tribune is not publishing her surname because she is a dependent minor.
Known as the Dream Act, or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, the legislation would provide hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship if they were brought to the U.S . as children, are younger than 30, have graduated from a U.S. high school and either enroll in college or enlist in the military.
"This bill means a lot to me," Durbin said recently. "But it means even more to a lot of young people across this country."
Yet the Dream Act, which Democrats have vowed to bring to a full Senate vote in November, faces an uphill fight.
It was withdrawn last month as an amendment to a defense bill in the wake of intense public criticism. It has even raised the ire of traditionally pro-immigration groups that view the military-service component of the bill as a means of strong-arming desperate young men and women into uniform at a risky time of war. And it has infuriated anti-amnesty groups that say it has no safeguards against fraud, rewards those who have broken the law and does nothing to address future immigration enforcement.
"Listen, I agree that these individuals would be at the top of my list for legalization -- but only after we have dealt with the problem of future enforcement, " said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates lower rates of immigration.
Bipartisan support
The Dream Act, which has been introduced in various forms since 2001, has significant bipartisan support; Durbin's co-sponsors are Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Yet it comes in the wake of last summer's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, which crashed and burned in Congress, and at a time when much of the American public has expressed disapproval of any legislation that could be interpreted as amnesty for immigrants here illegally.
The Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan immigration think tank, has estimated the Dream Act would allow some 279,000 currently illegal residents to attend college or join the military. Further, some 715,000 illegal immigrants age 5 to 17 would become eligible in the future, according to the research group.
Advocates laud the Dream Act as a way to grant legal residency to educated young men and women who have the potential to contribute to the country by continuing on to college. In addition, they say, the legislation would funnel a pool of enlistees into the armed services at a time when the military is facing severe recruitment challenges in the wake of the war in Iraq.
"We see in these people a generation of young people who are honor students, valedictorians, young men and women with a lot to contribute to this country," said Josh Bernstein, federal policy director at the National Immigration Law Center. "These are kids who grew up here, who went to our schools, who are poised to repay the investment we've already made in their education."
Military enlistment
A number of high-level Army officials also have come out in favor of the legislation. Durbin has touted the fact that those eligible for the Dream Act must have graduated from high school, in contrast to a large number of military recruits today.
The senator last week cited statistics that in 2006, 20 percent of Army recruits did not have a high school degree, the highest rate of school dropouts among Army enlistees since 1981.
Yet the military portion of the bill has also fueled much criticism.
"The military option right now isn't just any other option," said Jorge Mariscal, director of the Chicano-Latino Arts and Humanities program at the University of California San Diego. "It's an option where you can be killed or seriously wounded or where you will have to do killing yourself.
"The carrot of citizenship is so attractive to these kids who are so desperate for legalization, " he continued. "But the problem is that during this time of war there is a huge stick behind that carrot."
Mariscal, a Vietnam veteran who has long criticized the military's aggressive recruiting in impoverished, minority communities, scoffed at arguments that the Dream Act allows young men and women to choose between the military and college. Few illegal immigrants have the financial means to make college a possibility, he said.
He also pointed out that there is no such thing as a two-year commitment to the military because every contract stipulates the Pentagon can compel an out-of-uniform service member back into duty within eight years of enlistment.
Other critics fear the bill is a covert attempt to legalize a far larger number of undocumented immigrants -- the Dream Act allows those who are eligible to sponsor their spouses or children for legal status. And the critics caution that the bill has too few safeguards against fraud.
"The Dream Act says [those who are eligible] are to have been in the U.S. at least five years. ... It's going to be very difficult to verify any of that with an illegal population," Camarota said. "And the high school diploma part comes with the same problem -- we're talking nearly a million high school diplomas rolling into an immigration system that is already completely ineffective. Are they going to call a million schools to verify that each one is real?"
Legalization vs. enforcement
Camarota and other critics consistently make one argument: Any form of legalization without a change in enforcement will only encourage more illegal immigration.
"We can't restore the rule of law by rewarding those who have broken it," Camarota said.
Bernstein said his organization is keeping a close tally of legislators who are agreeing to vote for the bill. He predicts the vote will pass or fail by a razor-thin margin, and he believes lawmakers have been deeply moved by stories of their own constituents who are in the same position as Rosa, the Chicago high school senior.
If the legislation fails and she cannot attend college in the U.S., Rosa said she would consider attending nursing school in her native Mexico. But she worries about one thing: Although she speaks Spanish fluently, she struggles with reading and writing it.
"I know I am here illegally," she said, "but it wasn't my fault. I was only 7 when my parents brought me here. I'm just trying my best to make a difference in this society that I've been raised in."
Camarota was unconvinced, saying that, sadly, children in every society often pay the price for their parents' bad decisions.
"It may not have been their fault when they were first brought here," he said, "but it is their fault now. They have become adults, and they know they are breaking the law."
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Bill requirements
To qualify under the proposed Dream Act, individuals must:
*Have arrived in the U.S. before age 16
*Be under 30 on the date of enactment
*Have lived in the U.S. for at least five years
*Have graduated from a high school or obtained a GED in the U.S.
*Serve in the U.S. military or attend a U.S. college for at least two years
*Have good moral character
Source: Office of Sen. Dick Durbin
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