DREAM Act
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM Act, would have given undocumented immigrants a chance at one of the most basic human rights: The right to an education.
By filibustering the DREAM Act—with the intention of killing it completely—the Republican Party and a handful of co-conspirators have voted to keep the jackboot of U.S. immigration policy pressed squarely on the collective neck of undocumented workers.
The United States economy relies on Latin America, and Mexico in particular, for cheap labor. Preventing the children of undocumented workers from gaining the social benefits of education and citizenship, almost ensures another generation of disadvantaged, impoverished “illegals”—fresh meat for the sausage grinder of corporate exploitation.
Section 505 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act makes it illegal for a public university to offer in-state tuition rates to undocumented students.
California’s Assembly Bill 540, passed in 2001, gave some hope to undocumented students by allowing them to pay in-state tuition rates, provided they graduate from a California high school. But California’s undocumented immigrant students are still forced to pay tuition completely out of pocket—an enormous obstacle in continuing their education.
The DREAM Act would have eliminated the need for AB540’s legal gymnastics concerning the immigration status of students, and helped young immigrants living here start on the path to becoming naturalized citizens.
But there are many, it seems, who would like to see fewer U.S. citizens and more servants.
To grasp the extent of America’s economic subjugation of Mexico and its people, it helps to understand some of the history behind our addiction to Mexican labor.
The U.S. has exploited Mexican workers since the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe cut Mexico nearly in half and cemented U.S. authority ‘from sea to shining sea,’ making the imperialist dream of “manifest destiny” a reality
The U.S. government’s tacit endorsement and stewardship of corporations exploiting foreign labor stretches back to the construction of the transcontinental railroad. From 1942 to 1964, the “Bracero Program” sanctioned the hiring of Mexican guest workers to fill the vacancies in the U.S. workforce left by mass enlistment in the military during World War II.
Although the Bracero Program officially ended in 1964, the unquenchable thirst of U.S. enterprise for cheap, easily-exploited labor did not subside. This thirst eventually lead the Mexican government to create the Border Industrialization Program, which resulted in a proliferation of U.S.-owned factories in Mexico called “maquiladoras.”
In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which lead to increased use of maquiladoras by U.S companies.
Under this trade arrangement, U.S. companies export raw materials to Mexico, duty free, and then export it back to the U.S.—duty free once again.
This practice now accounts for nearly half of Mexico’s exports.
Unlike the “braceros,” who were predominantly men, the workers who staff the maquiladoras are mostly young women.
According to a 1999 edition of Mexican Labor News & Analysis, “In the early days women made up as much as 80% of the assembly plant workforce, today they number close to 60%.”
The website for Made In Mexico Inc., a California-based company that offers “maquiladora management services,” claims that American companies who set up shop in Mexico “can expect to save as much as 75% on labor costs.” But innocent people on both sides of the border end up footing the bill for the ethical corners being cut by unscrupulous companies.
Global Trade Watch, an independent group that monitors NAFTA and other trade agreements, says that maquiladora employment opportunities in Ciudad Juárez have increased by 54 percent since NAFTA was adopted. This has resulted in a population boom that has subsequently increased the volume of undocumented immigrants seeking work in the U.S. and created health hazards along the border.
GTW’s assessment of NAFTA five years after it’s inception found that Juárez still had, “no waste treatment facility to treat sewage produced by the 1.3 million people who now live there” and that over 100 million gallons of industrial waste, agricultural runoff, slaughterhouse remains and raw sewage had been pumped into the New River.
That same assessment quoted the Texas Department of Health as saying that “since NAFTA went into effect the Hepatitis A rate for Cameron County shot up from 17.8 per 100,000 residents to 87.4 per 100,000 an increase of almost 400%.”
A corresponding increase in the number of those infected by tainted drinking water has occurred in several other Texas border counties. This is just one small, physical repercussion to our country’s dependence on foreign labor.
The DREAM Act wouldn’t solve the problems facing our nation, or erase the social harm that exploitation has inflicted upon generations of undocumented workers and their families, as well as the country of Mexico itself. But it would represent the first step in creating a humane and sensible immigration policy in alignment with the American values of liberty and opportunity.
With the midterm elections quickly approaching, Senate incumbents running for re-election took the coward’s way out by voting to assauge the knee-jerk, anti-immigrant hysteria that always accompanies a downturn in employment.
On Sept. 29, the DREAM Act was re-introduced in the Senate, this time as a stand-alone bill. This bill needs to pass.
According to the National Immigration Law Center, The DREAM Act would significantly reduce high school dropout rates. It would also increase the size of our legal workforce, bringing more tax revenue to the struggling U.S. economy.
Most importantly, the DREAM Act would reward the tenacity and courage of young people—young Americans—who did not choose their immigration status, and are just striving to better their situation by educating themselves.
By killing this important first step towards a more humane immigration policy, those advocating the status quo are killing the potential of bright, young minds waiting to be liberated.
It falls to those of us with access to education and the privilege of citizenship to advocate for those who are just seeking to follow in this nation’s tradition of overcoming adversity in pursuit of the American dream.