Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Fighting Misinformation - Part I

This is the first installment of the "Fighting Misinformation" series I decided to embark on.

As I mentioned in one of my posts, there is a lot of false information regarding the DREAM Act. This information has been mostly spread by the anti-immigration/anti-DREAM Act crowd. I realize that their minds cannot be changed; however, there are people (U.S citizens included) who would support this piece of legislation if they were aware of the facts surrounding it. One of the goals of this blog is to inform the few readers I might have about DREAM, and I thought this was the best way to do it.

Enough talking. Let's begin.


1) The DREAM Act is not amnesty.

Amnesty (n): an act of forgiveness for past offenses, esp. to a class of persons as a whole.

The idea of amnesty does not apply to DREAM Act beneficiaries. Amnesty, as shown above, implies that the person has committed a crime or offense. Students eligible for the DREAM Act did not commit a crime by coming to this country. They were children and infants, brought to the U.S. by their parents. The only "crime" they committed was to follow them.

Furthermore, DREAM Act students will not be "granted" citizenship after the enactment of the act. They will have to complete at least 2 years of college or 2 years in the military in order to be eligible for citizenship. They will also have to continue to show good moral character and have no criminal record in order to qualify. Furthermore, the DREAM Act legislation states that students will only be eligible for citizenship after 6 years have passed since the enactment of the law.

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