DREAM act!

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Original post by SteveDeFacto senate didn't pass it...

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Pain isn't the first thing you remember about the policeman thwacking your arm with a bamboo cane. First thing is the shock. "What on earth just happened?" Two weeks ago you're riding with your father in a rickshaw along a jam-packed street in Dhaka, Bangladesh when you see a few street children half naked, starving, skeletons dressed in skin. At once the rickshaws around you rustle with murmurs and shouts at the policeman beating the children on the head. So you jump out of the rickshaw and say to the policeman, "Stop beating those children!" You're a foot behind the cop who turns to demand that you stop speaking English. "Speak Bangla!" commands the cop. But you can't speak Bangla or understand what else is being said all around you as the policeman harangues you while the crowd harangues the cop. Then thwack. That bamboo cane smacks a bruise on your arm, just below the left shoulder. There is no time to sort anything out. Your father tugs you by the arm and you run with him as fast as you can, escaping into the inexorable crowds of Dhaka. If you are asked a question about why you did it, you reply with a question: "On what planet is it okay to beat children on the head because they are begging to stay alive?" But mostly nobody asks. You are an exile--a deportee--and you usually try to stay anonymous before the eyes that come near you. As Ralph Isenberg tells you via cell phone from Dallas: "You may not be an American citizen yet, Saad Nabeel, but you are an American teenager." And who expects an American teenager to sit quietly when he sees a cop beating a starving child on the head? None of the American teenagers you know. And yet, how is it possible to make sense of all this? Even now, two weeks after the cop caned Nabeel, and after he grabbed a tourist visa and fled from Bangladesh, he hesitates to tell people in his new place of residence that he lived as an exile in Bangladesh because he was deported from America for no crime whatsoever ...

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Original post by Chris Reynolds I'm for anything that educates and puts illegal immigrants on record. These kids need a channel for progress and this seems a fair deal. My problem is with their parents. The majority that don't pay taxes,

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run up un-payable medical bills,

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unfairly compete for American jobs (sub-minimum wages, no tax overhead etc.),

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weasel their way into welfare,

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and flee from car wrecks with no driver's licenses, cars registered under other people, and no insurance (this is very common - the father of a friend of mine suffered this exact scenario).

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A program like this hopefully serves as an incentive to take the path their parents should have taken.

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Original post by Chris Reynolds The majority that don't pay taxes, run up un-payable medical bills, unfairly compete for American jobs (sub-minimum wages, no tax overhead etc.), weasel their way into welfare, and flee from car wrecks with no driver's licenses, cars registered under other people, and no insurance (this is very common - the father of a friend of mine suffered this exact scenario).

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How exactly is it unfair for them to work jobs that other people won't? If you're so jealous of the great and amazing job that some illegal immigrant has,

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Original post by Chris Reynolds I agree business owners share the blame for hiring illegals instead of Americans. A better argument is that they do the jobs that American business owners don't want to pay much for. The business owner may win, but the unemployed Americans lose.

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Original post by owl he/she could get married...

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Original post by Chris Reynolds I agree business owners share the blame for hiring illegals instead of Americans. And the argument that "they do the jobs Americans won't do" is incredibly naive, and a frustrating notion. My city is littered with grown men twirling signs in the freezing cold, feeling luck to just have a job. Ask an unemployed father what job he wouldn't do to keep a roof over his family's head. A better argument is that they do the jobs that American business owners don't want to pay much for. The business owner may win, but the unemployed Americans lose.