Maryland Passes Their Own State-wide Version of the DREAM Act

A DREAM Act rally in Maryland in August 2012 (Photo courtesy of flickr user mdfriendofhillary)

Being the great American that I am, I basically only kept up with the elections to see who ended up as President of the United States. Earlier this week, it was brought to my attention that Maryland passed their own version of a statewide DREAM Act. In my own personal opinion, this is great. In addition to allowing equal tuition for undocumented students, they also passed the right to gay marriage. Anywho, back to business. Every time I’ve looked up information on the DREAM Act, Maryland was one of the top states to come up, so it was not surprising to find out that they were at the top of their game when it came to passing this law on election day. Even though this is very progressive, it still does not solve the issue of Maryland’s immigrant youth being deported or what will become of them after they graduate college, much like President Obama’s Deferred Action for Child Arrivals. In order to solve this problem, the DREAM Act needs to pass at a national level.

Although variations of the DREAM Act have been suggested for the past decade and have been unsuccessful, the Deferred Action plan under the Obama administration is the biggest one to have passed. Because of this, Obama’s second term might be a more enlightened one.

“I think that education is a universal right. The access to knowledge ought to be available to everyone regardless of their citizenship status. I think that in his second term, Obama will really push for social change in this country. I believe in the hope he has for this country and for every American and every person who would like to call themselves an American,” said freshman, journalism major, Anne Shearer.

Eleven states have already passed their own versions of the DREAM Act, including California, Texas and New York. All of these states have rapidly growing foreign-born populations, but then again, so does Arizona. However, in being a more conservative state, does this mean that we will have to wait until the DREAM Act is passed at a national level in order to bring social change to our state?

“I think we’re making strides towards it, but I don’t think it’ll happen within the next four years. It might happen within the next eight years, but definitely not during Obama’s second term,” said Garrett Niederkorn, a sophomore entrepreneurship major at ASU.

While our generation might be one of the most innovative and possibly revolutionary generations that there ever was, without more civic engagement from citizens, the passage of the DREAM Act at a national level will not be possible. In my opinion, Arizona will probably not get their own version of the DREAM Act under Obama’s second term simply because the majority of our state is so conservative and also because Sheriff Joe Arpaio somehow got reelected. Also, we’ve got bigger fish to fry as a state, like state secession… 

Obama’s Reelection Offers Hope to DREAMers

This past election was certainly a nail biter for all Americans, but probably more so for the Latino community. Especially those who had already applied for the Deferred Action program.

Although DACA doesn’t only apply to undocumented Latino immigrants, they seem to the the only ones constantly being covered in the media all over the nation and especially in Arizona since it’s a border state. After SB 1070 passed earlier in the year, 60% of Arizonan Latinos were more inclined to vote in the 2012 election than they were in 2008. Even though there were other pressing issues, many Latino voters were very concerned with what was going to happen to DACA in case Mitt Romney were elected president. Some people, such as Javier from one of my previous posts, remained weary about applying to DACA before the election for fear of potential deportation just for having their information in the system.

Potential deportation was also a concern with the Obama administration when it came to signing up for the Deferred Action plan, even though they claimed that they had no intention of using the information provided to them for anything but DACA. While the Romney administration hoped to acquire Latino voters by gaining their attention with the economy, a lot of undocumented youth feared that if Romney were elected president there would be no hope for them, especially after he had made some strong claims about immigration and even went on to praise Arizona for SB1070 . In an interview with Jorge Ramos on Univision, Romney claimed that he was for immigration,  but that he would replace Obama’s temporary measure with a more permanent solution. This would potentially mean that DACA would be cut, along with Arizona State University’s Barack Obama Scholars Program, which is essentially a need-based money for students.

While Mitt Romney did have some very good strategies toward tackling our nation’s current problems, it was indisputable that immigrant youth everywhere felt a huge sigh of relief at Obama’s reelection. Within his past four years on office, President Barack Obama is the first President to break barriers with a deferred action program. There is no telling what his next term holds, but DREAMers everywhere remain hopeful. If Obama was able to pass a small, but extremely significant, version of the DREAM Act during these past four years, who’s to say that the overall goal of the DREAMers won’t be a success sometime in the near future?

My favorite Univision reporter, Jorge Ramos, probably talking something really important, but I’m too distracted with his silver foxiness to pay attention. He’s basically the Latino equivalent of Anderson Cooper. (Photo by Flickr User nasa q photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/)

A Sociological Standpoint

Sociology professor Paul Harasha casually checking out something super interesting (game scores) on his computer before class (Alejandra Guillen)

Today, I had the honor of interviewing one of my favorite professors of all time, Paul Harasha, Professor of Sociology at Mesa Community College. I took his Sociology 101 class during the summer and I cannot say that I ever dreaded going to his class. Since I found his class and teaching methods very intriguing, I decided to interview him in order to get a sociological perspective/opinion on SB 1070, the Deferred Action Plan and, of course, the Dream Act. So, without further ado, here it is.

AG: Let’s start locally with SB 1070. Do you think that it promotes racial profiling and how does that pose a problem from a sociological standpoint?

PH: That’s not a short answer… I think it definitely promotes racial profiling. None of this is new. Our country has been doing this from the get-go, with exclusion of whatever it is- women, people with disabilities, Native Americans. So does it promote racial profiling? There’s no doubt in my mind that it does. Only certain groups of people are getting stopped. They’re not stopping people in certain neighborhoods, they’re not stopping people near colleges. So I think it promotes unhealthy relations, conflict intention and we’re losing trust.

AG: So to branch off of that, why do you think that we as a society fear illegal immigrants and undocumented citizens?

PH: I don’t know if it’s fear as much as insecurity. Just to do a little history, in the 80s and 90s when the stock market was screaming and people’s 401k’s were doing well, we didn’t care about the immigration issue. The minute people start feeling threatened and there’s kind of an outside force supposedly, you know, taking their jobs or things like that, we need a scapegoat. So as our 401k’s are hurting and people are losing their jobs, which is no fun for anyone to lose their job, but we need to blame somebody, so we find a scapegoat. [Immigrants] are an easy target. During World War II in this country, we needed workers because all the men were fighting, so we… opened up the borders and let people work. So we liked them then. And the minute the soldiers came back, everyone was fighting for resources. I don’t know if it’s a fear or just an insecurity. It happened in the depression in the Thirties, where we rounded up and deported American Citizens of Mexican descent and pushed them away.

AG: So do you think that this continuous cycle of invitation and rejection of immigrants will keep happening throughout history, or do you think that at some point it will stop and we’ll be comfortable with having them here?

PH: All over the world today- not just Mexico coming to America- but all over the globe, people are moving at rapid rates. People are in transit and immigrating, for lack of better words, toward jobs all over the place. Europe doesn’t have a high population, so people from Africa and Asia are moving to Europe for jobs. And if they’re not liked and don’t speak the language, don’t have the same religion, the’re not being assimilated or accepted very well. So same thing in this country. Until we figure [this] out globally, we’ll continue to have trouble. America is not unique to this, it’s happened all over the world.

AG: So now with that being said, let’s  talk about the DREAM Act and the Deferred Action Plan. Even though the Deferred Action plan is a huge breakthrough, it’s the only on to have successfully branched from the DREAM Act after about a decade of going through Congress and it still doesn’t allow the same rights to undocumented citizens. Do you think that we’ll ever progress towards that or do you think that undocumented citizens will be at a standstill with minimal rights?

PH: No, I’m the eternal optimist. I think we’ll figure it out and realize the potential that are in this country regardless of where they were born or how they came here. We need to utilize their potential. We need to see the nobility in every human being and what they can contribute. Young people like you will change the world and figure out better ways to incorporate citizens or non-citizens. Is it going to be a struggle to get there? Yeah. I just think that with the history of this country’s exclusion rather than inclusion and seeing what people can bring, … we’re wasting a lot of potential. There are some kids out there that can contribute to this country and we need to figure out ways to utilize their capacity whether it’s in education or, you know, all different areas.

AG: Branching off of the topic of young people, just recently the Maricopa Community Colleges said they would begin to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students. How do you feel about that?

PH: We’ve got to stop putting barriers and obstacles in front of people. Tuition’s already high enough, so if someone’s been here and living here we need to educate them. The lower the tuition, the better for them to be educated and be part of our work force and  more importantly, to just contribute. If we put obstacles up, we’re gonna pay for it one way or the other. Whether it’s in different forms of welfare or crime. So I’m for lower tuition or in-state tuition.

AG: For everyone, right?
PH: For everyone!

AG: Good! Is there anything you’d like to add?

PH: For all of these issues with immigration and citizenship, I think society has to mature to recognize that we’re transitioning to a globalized world and the next phase in this is uniting as countries and as a globe to understand that it doesn’t matter where you’re from. Economy is global, and the next step is to recognize that one-ness through economics, through education, probably through religion, through politics. I think that we’re still a little immature as a society to recognize that, but the next stage is to figure out how to unite as a planet. This barrier, Mexico and the United States, is a man-made barrier. It’s putting up more obstacles that are preventing us form unifying as a planet. We have our work cut out for us, but that’s the next stage in human evolution- to come together.

AG: That was deep… You’ve mentioned that we have the same problem everywhere else, but do you think that for some reason immigration is a bigger problem in the United States than anywhere else?

PH: It probably seems big to us because we live here. I think once America figures it out, because we are probably one of the most diverse, if not the most diverse country in the world, we have different religions, languages, cultures coming together. America is a challenge just because we are so diverse. And how to incorporate all of these different groups of people accept everybody, include everybody, have justice for everybody and all walks of life, once we figure it out with young people being engaged and coming up with solutions, America will be the model or the beacon for the rest of the world because we are so different. Young people like you have their work cut out. But you guys with your technology, and your social networking and your access to information and your desire to be of service will change the world. You guys are crossing boundaries with different races and different cultures. You haven’t had good models on how to do it, but you guys will change it through public policy, through your neighborhoods, through your friends. I think you guys have a desire to serve, you just don’t know how. You’re finding a place to use your energies, and once you find it, you will change your communities and bring us peace and unity and justice.

Paul Harasha, everybody. Always an advocate for the young ones.

That video I said I was going to post

Turns out, all of my b-roll somehow was not uploaded correctly onto my hard drive. You might interpret that as, sone of my b-roll was not uploaded correctly onto my hard drive. You would be wrong. IT WAS NOT THERE.
So, what we’re left with is a very somber and b-roll-less life account by Javier.

Javier is currently studying at South Mountain Community College. He hopes to graduate from college, but is unsure of what the future holds for him because of his undocumented status. It’s heartbreaking to watch one of my good friends have so much potential but be held back by such a trivial fact.

Here is Javier’s story

Skepticism

How do you spell the Dream Act?

Behind the Scenes Sneak Preview

I don’t really know how to give a sneak preview without spoiling the actual video, but here it goes…

For the past couple of days, I have had the pleasure of interviewing one of my good friends, Javier*. I have known him since middle school, but it wasn’t up until we were all applying for college that I found out he was undocumented. I asked him to share his story with me for my journalism class’s video project and he agreed without much hesitation. He chose to remain anonymous throughout the video, but his story is still very compelling. Before the interview, Javier expressed to me that he was nervous about the interview. However, it wasn’t because of the interview topic, but because he had never been interviewed on camera. He warmed up to it pretty quickly gave a great material.

Javier came to the United States when he was very young- so young, that he doesn’t remember much of his life in Mexico and started going to school  here in the first grade. Most of the memories that he could recall made him smile, while others brought a sad look to his eyes. He was always a great student, striving only for the best grades, taking AP and Honors level classes throughout high school, participating in many extra curricular activities and graduating at the top five percent of his class. His class ranking made him eligible for many great scholarships, but his legal status did not allow him to receive them. Javier attended Grand Canyon University for his freshman year of college, but due to financial hardship, he decided to drop out and start his sophomore year out at a community college. He does not know what the future will hold for him after graduation, since his legal status would not allow him to get a job without a social security number despite the amount of work he has put into his education.

Javier has looked into applying for President Obama’s deferred action plan in order to receive a work permit, but is still weary. Many other undocumented students across the nation are still skeptical about applying for DACA for fear that the information provided on the application might be used against them in the future. U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services had expected to process about 300,000 applications by October 1, but have only received about 120,000.

Despite his legal status, Javier considers himself to be “just like anyone else” in this country and will continue to seek ways to further his education and become a U.S. citizen.

(*Name has been changed for identity protection purposes)

Undocumented and Unafraid

Arizona state University’s Comparative Border Studies Program hosted the “Undocumented and Unafraid” event on September 13, 2012. This event featured key speakers from UCLA and ASU who told of their experiences as undocumented students. I could probably write more about it, but my video ended up being much longer than I anticipated, so just watch it…

(Editor’s Note: The video was not working, so I fixed it)

AZ Making Progress

Just this past week, Maricopa Community College changed their policy and are now granting undocumented students in-state tuition as long as they have a work permit. This new policy directly contrasts AZ Governor Jan Brewer’s anti-immigration policies, but favors President Obama’s Deferred Action current plan. Only 12 states offer in-state tuition for undocumented students so far. With Arizona’s policies being so anti-immigration, this new policy is truly a breakthrough for civil rights activists and supporters of the DREAM Act. Cronkite News just posted a great video on this new protocol and how Prop 300 affected undocumented student Dulce Matuz, who was also named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2012.

Since Cronkite News is probably much more knowledgeable and reputable when it comes to these things, I’m just going to share their video. Enjoy!

It happened

Editors note: Picture inserted after post was posted
Image from Flickr user: Mike Licht (http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/)

On Tuesday, September 18, 2012, Judge Susan Bolton ruled that part 2(B) of Arizona’s ever controversial Senate Bill 1070  could go into effect immediately.

Just a recap for those of us who had forgotten about this initiative that started in 2010 : This part of the bill, most commonly referred to as the “show me your papers” law, grants police officers the right to pull someone over, and with reasonable cause, ask for their citizenship papers.

Although the definition of reasonable cause has its stipulations, many believe that this section of the bill encourages racial profiling by police officers when it comes to asking for proper documentation. AZ Governor, Jan Brewer says that officers have to act in accordance with the Constitution and people’s civil rights. This premise, however, is not enough for the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU considers this a major disappointment to civil rights advocates and will firsthand document cases of racial profiling in order further push equal treatment for everyone under the law.

The passage of this was certainly the talk of the town among many social media sites. The #SB1070 hash tag on Twitter brought out many strong beliefs on the topic.

Now, this law definitely opposes both DACA the DREAM Act. SB1070 could potentially slow down the progress that the supporters of the DREAM Act are expecting and might jeopardize their legal status in Arizona and in other states that are considering passing similar laws.

This legislation can be considered a bump in the road for DREAM Act supporters. Anything can happen, especially with the 2012 presidential election being right around the corner. Lest we forget the major plot twist that occurred when a certain president was running for re-election back in 1972…