Sen. Durbin Chairs First-ever Senate Hearing on DREAM Act

Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by Eduardo Garcia with Sandra Khalifa

Print Icon

Email this story

  • Sen. Durbin Chairs First-ever Senate Hearing on DREAM Act
Ola Kaso testifyies at DREAM Act hearing.

SOURCE: AP / Charles Dharapak

DREAMer Ola Kaso, from Sterling Heights, Mich., who faces deportation to Albania, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 28, 2011, during the first-ever Senate hearing on the DREAM Act.

Yesterday’s first-ever Senate hearing on the DREAM Act was nothing short of historic. Three hundred immigrant youth from all across the country ascended on Capitol Hill to watch Senator Durbin (D-Ill) solicit unprecedented testimonies from administration officials explaining why the DREAM Act is critical for America’s prosperity, national security, and workforce. Secretaries Janet Napolitano and Arne Duncan, Under Secretary Clifford Stanley, Lt. Colonel Margaret Stock, and DREAMer Ola Kaso each outlined the compelling reasons why we need to provide young immigrants a route to earned citizenship.

The hearing also provided an opportunity for members of congress to raise their concerns about the bill, but to draw attention to the ways the Obama administration is dealing with cases that involve DREAM Act-eligible youth. Sec. Napolitano stated that her agency is still working on streamlining a more transparent deferred action process, and reiterated that DHS is not interested in prosecuting immigrant youth: “We simply don’t see appropriations necessary to remove everybody who is technically removable from the United States, we have set priorities,” she said.

In addition to the hearing, as we have been reporting here at Campus Progress the ongoing dialogue about the need for meaningful action on immigration has been escalating in other ways. Last week, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio’s Vargas came out as undocumented in a New York Times magazine story, and yesterday, six high school youth were arrested for protesting Georgia’s laws banning undocumented immigrants from higher education. While the strategies of these activists may differ, the message is the same, and louder and clearer than ever: our immigration system is broken, and we need to fix it.

The Witness List

Panel 1

Janet Napolitano – Janet Napolitano is the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama administration and has consistently supported the DREAM Act as a means of improving national security. Napolitano has openly stated that those eligible for the DREAM Act should not be deprived of citizenship as they “have no fault for being here in the United States.” While she says the passage of the DREAM Act would allow for more effective use of DHS resources, she has been heavily criticized for boasting about her agency’s deportation enforcement, which has quadrupled under her leadership and continues to prosecute immigrants detained for non-violent crimes and minor infractions.

Clifford L. Stanley – Dr. Clifford Stanley has been serving as the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness for the Obama administration since 2010. On the White House blog, Stanley recounted his experience in the Marine Corps, where he worked with many undocumented individuals who were committed to serving their country – “to ignore [undocumented youth] – simply is unconscionable.” 

Arne Duncan – Arne Duncan is the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Obama administration and the former head of Chicago Public Schools. Duncan has come out strongly in support of the DREAM Act: In a press conference hosted by Campus Progress last year, Duncan said, “I believe it’s not only the right thing to do for these students, who want for themselves the same things that we all want for our own children, it’s also the right thing to do for our country, where there is increasing demand for educated and capable youth in the workforce.” 

Margaret Stock – Margaret Stock is a retired Army Reserves lieutenant colonel and immigration attorney in Anchorage, Alaska. She has previously testified before Congress on immigration issues and has stressed the importance of providing a pathway to U.S. citizenship to improve U.S. military recruitment and retention: “The Pentagon has done longitudinal studies on immigrants in the military showing they are more likely to join than native-born citizens and stay in longer.”

Panel 2

Ola Kaso – Ola Kaso is a DREAMer who was born in Albania and brought to the United States when she was just five years old. She recently accepted an offer at the University of Michigan’s pre-med program, where she will pursue her dreams of becoming a surgeon. She was placed in deportation proceedings a couple of months ago but was luckily granted a stay of deportation.

Steven Camarota – Steven Camarota is the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington DC-based think tank that advocates for stronger border enforcement and the reduction in the number of undocumented immigrants already living in the United States. He has previously testified before Congress on other immigration related issues.

Sandra Khalifa is an intern with Campus Progress.

Eduardo Garcia is an advocacy associate at Campus Progress. Follow him @itseddie.

Print Icon
blog comments powered by Disqus