So many are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the biggest side effect of the Dream Act.
The DREAM act will give the legal right to work in the U.S. for additional unknown millions of adults, who currently cannot join the U.S. workfore legally, and are not currently counted in the unemployment statistics.
No other effect of the Dream Act compares to this one.
Foreign students can already go to college on an student visa. No new laws are needed for that. Thousands of student visas are granted every year. Such students just can't work anywhere they want. What's wrong with that?
Foreign nationals can get tourist visas to come to the U.S. for a visit every year, indefinately, if they want. No new laws are needed for that. They just can't work. What's wrong with that?
What this Dream Act is really about is the legal right to join the U.S. workforce.
This is the hidden issue. In a time of high unemployment, the last thing the recovery needs will be the addition of millions of legal workers to compete for the few available jobs. How anyone can say that adding more legal workers to compete for the few available jobs will not raise the unemployment rate is baffling to me.
If we do not get the unemployment rate down soon, Democrats will have big problems in 2012 as well. How could so many Democrats be considering a Bill which slaps the face of sufferring unemployed and underemployed citizens?
With unemployment being our number one problem today. this is the kind of decision that could put a lunatic like Sarah Palin in the white house, and it scares me.
Come on, the bill gives SIX years to get two years worth of college credits at any fifth rate college in the U.S! Is this really a serious requirement of any education inspired bill?
Swapping the constituent of suffering U.S. citizens, who CAN vote, for a the benefit of a constituent who cannot vote, seems like an insane political move to me.
Back to the DREAM Act, when did serving 2 years in our military become something to offer as a fine or punishment? I have a son proudly serving in the Air Force and I take exception to that premise.
In fact, due to the high unemployment rate of our own citizen young men and women, the military is currently over manned. My son had to wait almost a year after joining the military before any active duty jobs opened up so he could start. In the meanwhile, he had the hardest time finding even menial labor jobs, and he already had two years worth of college credits.
If the Dream Act was really just about students wanting a chance to go to college, the Act would simply allow undocumented students to file for F-1 foreign student visas from within the U.S., without affecting the unemployment rate of citizens and legal immigrants, such as myself. That's a bill that I could support.