Illinois “DREAM Act” only a dream. Real reform needs to come at federal level

If the Associated Press is at all accurate (and I don’t have any reason to doubt they are this time), Illinois political officials will be able to dream on Monday that they are taking a serious step toward revising the immigration policies of this nation.

QUINN: Grabbing some national attention?



Monday is the day that Gov. Pat Quinn is supposed to sign into law a measure approved by the General Assembly this spring that was billed as a state version of the DREAM Act.

THE “REAL” DREAM Act is a federal proposal that would enable young people not born in this country but who have lived the bulk of their lives in the United States to gain a path to citizenship IF they complete college or serve in the military.

In short, it acknowledges that for these young people, their lack of citizenship is really a technical glitch – and that they truly are a part of this country and should be treated accordingly.

Of course, the conservative ideologues have their hang-ups about this issue (and have caused its repeated failure in Congress – most recently back in December) because they don’t want to have to treat people like people. They only seem to be happy when there’s a class of people in our society that they can look down upon.

My own thoughts about the federal DREAM Act proposals are that they would not be necessary if the U.S. government were to take on the larger (and necessary) issue of immigration reform. But DREAM Act backers say that this is a positive step while we wait for the day that the full-fledged reform is undertaken.

THAT KIND OF logic seems to be at work with this bill. For it seems states that have more progressive political structures are eager to pass something that they can call a DREAM Act. My guess is that they just want the political backing from the Latino segment of the electorate.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a local DREAM Act bill into law just last week. Now, the Mighty Quinn seems eager to have his moment of national attention come Monday.

My problem with these state DREAM Acts is that I believe their use of the name is misleading.

Illinois’ DREAM Act bill will not, in any way, give anyone U.S. citizenship or give them a legitimate Visa or put them on any kind of path to citizenship. That is a point that only the federal government can address.

BUT WHILE THE federal DREAMers are trying to increase college enrollment, that is what this measure tries to do to.

What the Illinois DREAM Act bill says it that young people who are not U.S. citizens (or don’t have that valid Visa) who have lived the bulk of their lives in this state can qualify for scholarships that get their funding entirely from private sources.

Which means no taxpayer dollars are being used. Perhaps that will appease some ideologues similar to the issue of abortion where the medical procedure’s critics push for measures restricting government-funded medical programs from paying for the termination of a pregnancy.

Then again, it probably won’t.

BECAUSE THE PEOPLE who get all worked up over immigration reform are the ones who want increases in deportations. Actually, even that doesn’t truly please them, since the deportation total has risen significantly under President Barack Obama.

Yet the conservative ideologues still denounce him. Just as I’m sure they spent their weekend gearing themselves up to denounce Quinn for his own support of this measure that really doesn’t do much.

It will provide a little bit of funding for those students who can get accepted into college. But with the rising cost of tuition, who’s to say it will be at all sufficient?

In fact, about the most significant thing that this Illinois DREAM Act does is that it puts our state in the column of places that aren’t eager to enact hostile legislation meant to make immigrants feel unwelcome.

IT SAYS THAT we’re not Arizona or Alabama, or even Indiana – which this spring debated measures modeled after the Arizona laws that are now largely on-hold while a federal lawsuit is pending.

The Indiana Legislature wound up having to scale back its measures – not going for the measures giving local police significant authority to get involved in enforcement of federal immigration law.

I have been a constant critic of those measures because I realize how much local governments get offended when the federal government tries to meddle in their issues. The same logic applies in reverse.

Which is why I think the Illinois DREAM Act sounds cute, but is misguided. If anything, it is the wrong public official at work.

IF WE REALLY want an Illinois politico striving for better immigration policy, it should be Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., instead of Quinn at work.

For Durbin is the long-time sponsor of the federal DREAM Act measures who has another measure pending this year. Although its likely failure (it probably won’t even get discussed) is what has motivated all these local acts that are too much of a distraction from real action being approved.

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Legislature should stick to addressing concealed loaded handguns – DREAM Act really is out of Illinois’ league

I have been a constant critic of Arizona and other states that think they can pass laws getting their local police involved in federal immigration enforcement because such laws are not only hateful and partisan, they’re also meddling in an issue the states should not be messing with.

So with that same theme in mind, let me take a pot shot at my own home state of Illinois – which this week felt the need to have the state Legislature pass its own version of a DREAM Act.

AT LEAST THAT’S the way the proponents of the measure that got approval by the state Senate are portraying it. What they really passed was a measure that is so miniscule in character that I don’t think it accomplishes much of anything.

Yet there will be those people eager to do the needed reform of the federal immigration policy who will try to claim this is some sort of significant measure.

For all I know, the people who oppose federal immigration reform may now claim that there’s no need to do anymore – because a measure like this got through.

In short, I see this latest action in Illinois as a time-waster. We ought to be putting pressure on the political people in Washington to get serious with this issue – instead of thinking that our political people in Springfield, Ill. (or any other state Capital) can have a serious say in the matter.

WHY AM I bothered by what happened in Illinois – even though I am in full agreement with the sympathies of the people who took the political move?

What is being described as a local DREAM Act is a bill that would allow scholarships and financial aid that does not involve any government funding to be awarded to prospective college students – even if they themselves do not have a valid visa.

The federal measure known as the DREAM Act is aimed at those young people who were brought to this country at a very young age by parents who entered without a visa or let their visa lapse.

Because those young people have lived the bulk of their lives in this country, it is ridiculous to suddenly treat them as something foreign and dangerous to our society at the point when they’re trying to get into college.

BUT THIS STATE version of DREAM just doesn’t amount to much, since these privately-funded programs usually make up a tiny part of any college student’s financial aid package. This isn’t going to make a significant dent in the current situation, by which many of these promising young people are suddenly unable to advance themselves in life.

There also is the provision of the federal DREAM Act bills that call for a young person who actually manages to complete college (or serve in the military and receive an honorable discharge, in some versions) that calls for them to then qualify for “resident alien” status.

That is the legal term for those non-citizens who can openly live their lives in the United States. In short, these young people who either through education or military service show they are promising individuals can get the valid visa – and eventually qualify for the right to apply for U.S. citizenship.

That is a significant part of any such DREAM Act legislation. But there is nothing like that in the Illinois version, because the state has no authority to grant citizenship.

BECAUSE CITIZENSHIP IS a federal issue, not a state one. So just as I don’t want local cops thinking they can start “busting” people who they think “don’t belong” in this country (and maybe they’ll get lucky and turn out to find someone whose visa isn’t in order), I’m just as wary of any state thinking they can grant some sort of relief.

So I’m not anxiously awaiting the outcome when the Illinois House of Representatives takes on this same bill, where its fate is uncertain – although Gov. Pat Quinn has said he would sign the measure into law IF it makes it through the full General Assembly. This is one of those issues where 50 different policies (one for each state) would be absolutely abhorrent – as well as making this nation of ours look absolutely ridiculous.

And with the Illinois Legislature feeling the need these days to take on the issue of “concealed carry,” you’d think the last thing they’d want to do is take on “immigration reform” with an act that won’t make much of a difference either way – except to anger the xenophobic elements of our society who are probably also upset that they won't be able to whip out a pistol and shoot something.

Not legally, anyway. Thank the Almighty that the Illinois House on Thursday had the sense (for now, at least) to reject THAT idea.

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Immigration “reform” drive won’t die off

Through the sister weblog to this site, The South Chicagoan, I often hear from the conservative ideologues who want to believe they have “killed off,” once and for all, any effort toward  immigration reform.

These are the people who want to dance with joy at the embarrassing political activity that occurred back in December, when the Senate refused to even allow a final vote on the DREAM Act, letting their ideological hang-ups insist upon thinking of young people trying to advance themselves in life as somehow subversive to their vision of the “American dream.”

YET THE REALITY is that this issue isn’t going to die off. It is not going to end until the day that the federal government (which has the ultimate responsibility to address the flaws in our nation’s immigration policy) gets off its collective duff and takes action.

The reason why that day is forthcoming is because of the young population that is growing  more and more so in our society. There’s too many people who are personally affected who are going to refuse to continue to be ignored – and too many people whose sense of compassion and decency makes us realize that the “problem” is the people who want to turn their backs on them.

That is how I see the gathering of activists that occurred Thursday at the Daley Center – the site of so many downtown protest rallies that it becomes too easy to lose track of which cause is up for debate on any given day.

Those officials holding their “National Coming Out of the Shadows” rally are marking their similar event held a year ago to the date, which was followed up by similar rallies in other cities across the nation. That is likely to be the pattern in coming weeks – people are going to be showing their continued support for this particular issue.

WHAT HAS ALWAYS amazed me about opposition to the DREAM Act in particular is that it is nothing more than people letting their ethnic hang-ups get the best of common sense, since the people who would benefit from it are the ones who are making every effort in the conventional sense to advance themselves.

Higher education, or military service – with the benefit of a visa (and eventual chance at U.S. citizenship) given only if one successfully completes it. I hardly think anyone capable of receiving an honorable discharge from the military is subversive to our nation.

There is one aspect to Thursday’s events that I think to be totally appropriate.

That rally at the Daley Center was within site (literally across the street) from the building we think of as City Hall – only the city portion is on the other side. It is Cook County officials who could look out their windows and see the young people.

CITY OFFICIALS ON LaSalle Street could pretend that nothing unusual was happening. Considering that those officials include Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, it is ironic because Emanuel during his time as chief of staff to President Barack Obama did a good job of pretending that the issue didn’t exist.

Now the political observer in me understands his theoretical point – that the people who most oppose immigration reform measures would get so angry at anything he did on the issue that they would revolt and shut down Obama’s entire presidential agenda.

Then again, the hard-core Republican ideologues found enough reasons to try to shut down anything Obama desires to do as president. So I’m not sure that Emanuel gained anything for the president by steering him away from anything more than cheap rhetoric on immigration reform-related issues.

Now that we’re going to have Emanuel as mayor, he’s no longer in a position to continue to stall activity on this issue. Which means the voters of Chicago may well have done the nation a favor – although whether or not Obama’s new chief of staff, William Daley (as in the brother of departing mayor Richard M.) will be inclined to care about this issue remains to be seen.

IF BILL DALEY is really attuned to the mood of his hometown, he will have to care. Because this remains an ethnic city, where even the “white” people are fully aware of their ethnic backgrounds – and where the Latino people who take a heightened interest in this issue (because it relates to how we’re perceived as a whole, regardless of our citizenship status) have risen ever-so-close to the day when they’re exactly one-third of the city (29 percent, to be exact, according to the 2010 Census Bureau results).

This remains a “sanctuary city” where it is official policy that local police have no business getting involved in federal immigration enforcement. It makes us the antidote to places that view Arizona as some sort of model for local officials – whose training doesn’t come close to preparing them – desiring to meddle with this issue.

Which likely means that “the Chicago Way” is the way for the nation to follow. And there was a whole gathering of young people who on Thursday were more than willing to lead those of us who are reluctant down the proper path.

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Hold off on accolades for U.S. Senate – the progressive ‘glass’ is half-empty

To listen to, and read through, much of the rhetoric that came from Capitol Hill this weekend, our government took some serious steps in the direction of decency when it did away with the inane policies concerning gay people serving in the military.

KIRK: "Nea," then "yea"



I’ll be the first to admit that having the Senate vote to do away with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that was former President Bill Clinton’s inane attempt to compromise away an issue where there really is no compromise was a positive.

THE SOONER WE come to realize that gay people exist in our society, including in our military, the quicker we will move along and advance.

Yet before we get all too worked up in patting ourselves on the back because our political people had a “job well done” on Saturday (and that President Barack Obama will finish off by signing the repeal into law some time this week), let’s keep in mind that the very same politicians also took steps backward on the decency scale when they failed to overcome the nativist hostility that wants to view the DREAM Act as an attempt to reward the children of criminals.

I consider those two acts linked together because of the way they got paired up – short debate on DREAM, then a vote for cloture, followed up by short debate on the military policy, followed by a vote for cloture – by the Senate.

First, failure, then success, all within an hour’s time span, setting the stage for the vote later in the day Saturday where the U.S. Senate decided that the policy of allowing gay people to serve in the military only if they went to extremes to keep quiet about their orientation.

THAT MIGHT BE a step better than what the conservative ideologues would prefer (a policy by which the military could openly seek out gay soldiers and sailors, then whack them with the “dishonorable” discharge). But accepting that the sexual orientation is most likely irrelevant is the real direction our military needs to go – and is the direction that Clinton should have sought back in the 1990s when he pushed for the policy that is now on the verge of becoming ancient history.

GUTIERREZ: Pulling a Vrdolyak over DREAM?



It may well be totally appropriate that DREAM and the abolition of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” came on the same day. Because there are times I see a similarity in Clinton’s handling of gays in the military to the way Obama is trying to handle immigration reform – an issue needed just as crucially.

Clinton’s attempt to compromise into a policy “everybody” could accept created a nonsense policy that we now have to undo. Perhaps it is the same with Obama – who gives us the rhetoric about immigration policy that shows us he understands the issue’s significance.

But he seems unwilling to expend the political capital for “those foreigners” in the same way that Clinton wouldn’t do so for gay servicemen/women. His actions don’t match the talk.

COULD IT BE that we’re going to be stuck with a future president taking on the issue of immigration in a respectable manner, the same way that it appears Obama has to take on the military question because of Clinton’s shortcoming?

Despite that attack on the president, I’m not about to fall into the nonsense-rhetoric being spewed by the GOP Latino interests these days. I agree with them when they say the five Democratic members of the Senate who voted against DREAM are “shameful” and “should permanently be listed as anti-Hispanic” (although I’d use the label ‘anti-Latino’ instead).

But I think they’re behaving hysterically when they say our very own Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., should leave the Democratic Party in response to the Senate’s actions, and that the DREAM's failure is the fault solely of Democratic Party leadership.

These Latino Republicans (who at times come off sounding like they wish they were Anglo-, instead of Latin-, American) sound too much like apologists for their own party – which is the solid leader of the effort to kill off the DREAM, while also trying to maintain the status quo on gays in the military because they fear the future.

I’D TAKE THE Latino faction of the Republican Party (which does exist) a lot more seriously if they’d divert their future attention to trying to convince the majority of their own side about the legitimacy of immigration reform and the DREAM – whose purpose was to treat these young people who have lived here the bulk of their lives just like any other young person who lives here.

So what should we think of this weekend in the U.S. Senate – which I consider to be a draw for the forces of progressivism (which at times behave as though they’re two middle-aged stoners wasting away time in the basement)?

I couldn’t help but notice both Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., were among those who backed both issues, while rookie Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and veteran Richard Lugar, R-Ind., were split.

LUGAR: He was half-correct



Kirk did right by the military question, while Lugar behaved properly on the immigration-related issue. I didn’t expect Kirk to vote in favor of the DREAM, so his “nea” wasn’t shocking to me. I was more disappointed by the rhetoric of Lugar (one of the few GOPers who consistently acts properly on immigration) on gays in the military.

HE SAID IN his prepared statement that he questions making such a change at a time when U.S. military personnel are fighting both in Afghanistan and Iraq, falling into the line of illogic that this is merely the “wrong” time for the issue.

It sounds as absurd as those who argue that a time of tough economic times such as now is the wrong time to bring up immigration reform. Because the people who have the biggest hang-ups about these questions are going to keep them even when the war’s over, and the economy improves.

When we overcome all of these issues, then that is when we can legitimately pat ourselves on the back.

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Kirk’s head start will show partisanship

Illinois’ new U.S. senator is going to be one of the most watched political people, and not just because of his six-week head start over many of the other new Congress-types who got elected a month ago.

KIRK: Back to being a "freshman" in D.C.



Mark Kirk, who for the past decade was a representative from the North Shore suburbs, took his oath of office Monday, and the Republican partisans made sure to engage in symbolism by having Peter Fitzgerald at his side – showing that the GOP had seized back a political post they probably regarded as stolen from them with the 2004 election that shifted Barack Obama from the Statehouse Scene to Capitol Hill to begin with.

DESPITE THE FACT that many of the Republican officials who will be new to Washington got elected because of their conservative ideological ties, Kirk is the exception. All the rhetoric we heard throughout the campaign season indicated he was different.

“Moderate” is the word we heard over and over. Many of the political pundits have gone on to say they think Kirk will be the exception in the Senate’s Republican caucus – the official who might be willing to compromise on serious issues, while putting aside political partisanship if it means getting something done.

I’m not quite so sure, mainly because I realize how suspicious some people among the Illinois Republicans are about Kirk. They see his record as a representative as including support for the concept of abortion remaining legal and a willingness to let gay people serve openly in the military – even though he himself remains commissioned as an officer in the Naval Reserve.

Which is why I think Kirk is going to be a reliable vote for the Republican caucus, at least for his first couple of years in the Senate (he doesn’t have to worry about re-election until the 2016 election cycle).

HE’S GOING TO feel some pressure to go along with the majority of his new colleagues – unless he wants to be ostracized from Day One. He will wind up casting many votes completely in line with the Republican caucus (which won’t be as many as he would have cast had he remained in the House of Representatives, where the GOP has taken over the majority).

In short, Illinois is going to have many split votes, with Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., in favor of something touted by the Senate’s leadership, and Kirk being among the opposition.

The stories that have been coming up about the possible activity by the Senate in these final few days of a Congress controlled entirely by Democrats ought to give us a clue. Kirk has said that if a measure comes up in the next few days to eliminate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that lets gay people serve in the military provided they do nothing to draw attention to themselves, he will vote against it.

Many of the people who are taking that kind of vote are doing so because they see the alternative as one where gay people could openly serve in the military without any restriction. Even though Kirk in the past has supported the general principle concerning gay people in the military, he’s not about to challenge his political party’s stance on this issue. When the issue gets debated by a Senate committee reviewing a Pentagon study on the issue, Kirk is going to go out of his way to say as little as he absolutely has to on the issue.

THE SAME GOES for the DREAM Act, that measure that may come up for a vote in the Senate to allow young people without citizenship who have lived the bulk of their lives in this country to qualify for the same benefits to attend college or serve in the military just like anyone else.

During the campaign, Kirk often cited the fact that part of his education came at the UNAM (the National Autonomous University in Mexico City – one of Latin America’s most prestigious colleges). But he also has made it clear he will support his partisan allies who don’t want a favorable vote on anything perceived as immigration-oriented, unless something comes first that can be perceived as tighter restrictions along the U.S./Mexico border.

So if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., persists with his talk of pushing for a vote on the DREAM Act this week, he’s going to do it with one less vote (now-former Sen. Roland Burris would have been a “yes,” compared to Kirk’s anticipated “no”),

Those academics who gathered Monday at the University of Illinois at Chicago to urge Kirk to vote in favor of DREAM were engaging in a token political action, as Kirk isn’t about to risk putting himself on the GOP “black list” in his first week in office on an immigration-related measure.

IN FACT, I expect him to go out of his way to say as little as he has to. Not only for this week, or this month. Perhaps it will be for the upcoming year.

2011 could go into our political history books as the period in which Illinois was represented by the ambitions of Durbin (who deep-down has dreams of someday having the label “Majority Leader” in front of his name) and a soft-spoken temperament from Kirk – whose bottom line was that he was a reliable vote for the GOP stance on any issue of significance.

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