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Vol. 74/No. 47      December 13, 2010

 
White House pushes
passage of ‘Dream Act’
 
BY SETH GALINSKY  
After meeting with Latino members of Congress, President Barack Obama pledged November 16 to step up support for the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act.” If passed, it would open up the possibility of a green card and citizenship for some young people without papers, if they go to college or join the U.S. military. The bill was drafted by prominent Democratic and Republican politicians with input from the Pentagon.

At the same time, the Obama administration has intensified anti-immigrant measures begun by his Democratic and Republican predecessors, including increased criminalization of undocumented workers. The White House says it wants to “create a pathway for legal status” for some as a way of fixing the “broken immigration system.”

On Thanksgiving eve, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton claimed that “ICE continues to target, arrest and remove individuals that come to pursue a life of crime rather than the American Dream.” Under the guise of targeting “criminal aliens” ICE has expanded programs that result in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers.

While cutting back on factory raids, which were unpopular among both foreign and U.S.-born workers, Obama has led a five-fold expansion of immigration “audits,” forcing companies to fire thousands of workers without papers.

Obama has made formal “orders of removal” a central mechanism for deportations, meaning deported workers who return to the United States face the possibility of felony charges for “illegal reentry.”

By clamping down on undocumented workers while holding out the possibility of legalization for some, the U.S. rulers seek to maintain a group of workers with few rights and low pay. Immigrant labor plays a key role in bolstering U.S. capitalists’ edge and profits against their competitors around the world.

Under the Dream Act an estimated 2.1 million undocumented youth and young adults who have lived in the United States at least five years and arrived when they were under 16 years old could be eligible to apply for papers. Only an estimated 825,000, however, would qualify because the bill requires going to college for at least 2 years or serving “honorably” in the U.S. military for at least 2 years. The bill also requires “good moral character.”

Some proponents of the Dream Act argue that young people who go to college or serve in the U.S. military are more deserving of papers than young workers or older undocumented immigrants. A column in the Arizona Republic November 24 states, “We’ve educated these kids… Why not get something back from them as working, taxpaying adults?”

Many major papers have emphasized the benefits of the Dream Act for the U.S. military, carrying out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are not widely popular. The New York Times in an editorial said, “The Defense Department, at least understands” the value of undocumented youth for maintaining a “mission-ready, all-volunteer force.” A November 18 article in the Miami Herald featured Miami Dade College student José Salcedo, who said he hopes to become a U.S. citizen if the Dream Act is passed. “I would love to join the military,” Salcedo said. “And once I come back I would like to run for public office.”

Fighting for the Dream Act is often seen as a step toward winning legalization for others who are undocumented. But tying the fate of immigrant workers to the goals of U.S. imperialism and its combat forces is understood by many workers and supporters of immigrant rights as a dead end.

Attempts to draw the fight in this direction runs counter to the demand on the U.S. government for legalization, without conditions, and the uncompromising slogan “We are workers, not criminals” placed on banners and placards and chanted at scores of actions for immigrant rights over the past several years.  
 
 
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