Dream Act in Ohio

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Bernard Pastor (left), 18, is one of the thousands of people who could benefit from the Dream Act

By Jason Margolis

Democrats have a few more pieces of legislation they’d like to pass in the final days of this Congress. One is called the “Dream Act.” That stands for: The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

The legislation would provide a pathway to legal residency for undocumented immigrants who arrived here as children. The bill passed the House last week and supporters hope to bring it to the Senate floor soon.

The Dream Act could potentially help young people like Bernard Pastor, an 18-year-old who now sits in detention center in Ohio awaiting possible deportation to his native-country of Guatemala.

Pastor arrived in the United States when he was 3-years-old. Last spring he graduated from Reading High School, in southwest Ohio, in the top 5 percent of his class, a star on the soccer team.

Pastor was the driver in a minor car accident on November 17th. Police asked for his license; he didn’t have one. He’s here illegally, as is his family.

Since Pastor’s arrest, the community — classmates, teachers, the school principal, the mayor, and clergy — have rallied around his cause. Reading is a traditionally conservative, white middle class suburb of Cincinnati.

“He’s just an all-around good kid,” said Linette Kiefer, whose son is friends with Pastor. She’s opened her home as a gathering place for people working toward Pastor’s release.

“Except for his skin color, his hair color, or his heritage, you would think he was the all-American high school boy. He would be somebody you would welcome to your house anytime, have over for dinner,” said Kiefer.

Leo Pierson with the League of Latin American Citizens in Ohio called Pastor the “poster child” for the Dream Act.

“He’s a straight-A student, culturally American, he’s a native English speaker,” Pierson said. “He doesn’t know Guatemala, which is the home country of his parents. It’s not his home country; his home country is the United States.”

Pierson said young people like Pastor — the undocumented — live their adult lives in the shadows.

“This is a person who is a wonderful student and wonderful athlete and had to tell his teachers who were of course encouraging him to go to college that he wasn’t interested, which wasn’t the truth. But he had to hide that truth,” he said.

To be eligible for the Dream Act, a person would have to have been in the United States for five consecutive years prior to the bill’s passage. They’d also have to complete two years of college or military service.

Roughly 825,000 immigrants are likely to become eligible to become legal residents if the Dream Act passed, according to the research group The Migration Policy Institute. Perhaps another 1 million children could eventually become eligible as they get older.

Not everyone thinks the Dream Act is a good idea. Mark Krikorian is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. He doesn’t think Bernard Pastor, or others like him, deserve a fast track to US citizenship.

“There’s no question that situations like this are clearly sympathetic, there’s no disputing that,” said Krikorian. “(But) the parents are responsible for putting this kid in this position. That has to be the starting point. If you take out a mortgage, and you can’t pay it and you lose your home, you don’t go to the newspapers and say, ‘you have to make the bank let me stay because my kid will end up being thrown out as well.’ You’re the one throwing your kid out on the street.”

Krikorian also said if everybody with a compelling story got an exception, “We end up where we are today where everybody has an exception, where there is no immigration law, and it’s just a matter of who has the more sympathetic story, and who gets the ear of the local Congressman or the local newspaper. And that is no way to run a railroad.”

Many Republicans on Capitol Hill argue that the Dream Act would open the floodgates for rule breakers.

“The Dream Act is a nightmare for the American people,” said Texas Republican Lamar Smith speaking on the U.S. House floor last week. “And once these individuals become US citizens, they can petition for their illegal immigrant parents and adult brothers and sisters to be legalized who will bring in others in an endless chain.”

Those eligible for the Dream Act could petition to bring in their parents, but their parents would have to go back to their home countries for 10 years. At that point, the parents would have to apply for a visa and wait in line.

Critics of the Dream Act also argue that an amnesty now encourages others to migrate illegally in hopes of future amnesties.

Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at the City University of New York, said this talk of mass amnesty from the Dream Act is overblown.

“This (Act) applies to a very select group of people who are immigrants who were brought by their parents as children, have been here for a while already, and must meet a variety of fairly stringent conditions to receive status under this act if it were passed,” said Milkman. “So the idea that it’s a general amnesty, or whatever, is frankly nonsense.”

At this point, the Dream Act seems unlikely to muster the votes necessary to pass the Senate. And this appears to be its last, best-chance for a long while.

Back in Reading, Ohio, supporters of Bernard Pastor remain hopeful. An immigration lawyer has also filed a request with federal officials to allow Pastor to remain in the United States.
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