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Students delivered a clear message to Congress last month: Ensure access to a college education to all students who wish to pursue one.
A group of Panthers joined hundreds of students from across the country in Washington, D.C., lobbying for passage of the DREAM Act and urging Congress to preserve critical financial aid programs that are targeted for cuts in the federal budget.
The 14 FIU students and one advisor were in the nation’s capital as part of the United States Student Association’s (USSA) 42nd Annual Grassroots Legislative Conference and National Student Lobby Day, March 18-22. USSA is the country’s oldest and largest student-led organization.
“This is the first time that FIU students have marched on Capitol Hill in favor of USSA’s WTF (Where’s The Funding) campaign,” said Christin “Cici” Battle, former Biscayne Bay Campus (BBC) Student Government Association (SGA) president and leader of the trip. Battle is FIU’s national outreach officer for USSA.
The DREAM Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year but failed in the Senate. It seeks to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrant youth whose parents brought them to the United States. They would have to stay out of legal trouble and pursue higher education or serve in the military for at least two years. Currently, undocumented students are ineligible for financial aid or in-state tuition.
“We believe a substantial number of FIU students would benefit from passage of the DREAM Act,” said Denise Halpin, BBC’s newly elected SGA president.
USSA’s WTF campaign is a legislative advocacy movement to increase public investment in higher education at all levels – local, state and national – in the face of state budget cuts and tuition and fee hikes.
Currently 16,000 FIU students receive Pell Grants and that number is growing.
Students who went to Washington spent four days attending several workshops leading up to the final day and the march on Capitol Hill. Some workshops defined what constituted an undocumented student while other workshops explained student rights.
During the march students voiced their opinions. Speakers included USSA Vice President Victor Sanchez, undocumented students and individuals from 35 campus delegations. Groups from Morehouse College, Temple University, Cheyney University and University of Wisconsin, among other universities, participated.
After the morning rally, FIU students met with the Legislative staffs of eight Florida representatives, including staff members from the office of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.
— Tiffany Huertas
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Often times these university sponsored pro-illegal groups morph into full blown Marxist/La Raza/Anti-American organizations. There are 100 million Mexicans. 99 million would love to come here. Folks, given the current unemployment rate and few prospects around the corner for our economy to rebound, we cannot afford any more immigrants for at least a decade. Look how California’s burgeoning illegal population is bankrupting that state…
Interesting read:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255320/two-californias-victor-davis-hanson
I understand your statement and your rationality, as I read the article from the link you posted. However, I would like to ask you a few questions. How was our country built and by whom? Were the builders not immigrants? What makes our forefathers, who migrated here from other countries (mainly European) hundreds of years ago to escape religious and economic persecution, more entitled than the very people who are trying to do the same in today’s world? I realize that the unemployment rates and poverty levels are at an all time high, and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not yet visible, but our very own local American government put us in this position by allowing businesses to out source for “cheap” labor in order to provide “cheaper” products and services. Having said that, the DREAM Act, is not a law or bill which will provide citizenship to all illegal immigrants.
The DREAM Act gives a chance at life to those children who were brought here, without choice by their parents, and still managed to learn the language and excel in their education. These young adults made it into colleges and universities across this nation, and believe it or not, this is the very nation that they call home. These students are not asking for anything to be given to them, they are asking for a fair chance to work very hard to obtain a good future. They are asking for something that nobody, no matter who the person is, should ever be denied.
I was born in this country to a mother who is Caucasian and my father, although he is legally documented, was brought here by his parents when he was eight years old, from Panama. If my father was not given this very opportunity, that today we ridiculously fight for, perhaps I would not be the successful Healthcare Management Professional that I am today. I believe that these people, who have been referred to as DREAMERS, deserve the same opportunities that I received. After all, aren’t we all human? Weren’t all men and women created equal?The DREAM Act offers something very real to many people who, I know, have a lot to offer America.
To all of the DREAMERS out there, keep speaking, because your voices are being heard.
Edited*
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[I]I understand your statement and your rationality, as I read the article from the link you posted. However, I would like to ask you a few questions. How was our country built and by whom? Were the builders not immigrants? What makes our forefathers, who migrated here from other countries (mainly European) hundreds of years ago to escape religious and economic persecution, more entitled than the very people who are trying to do the same in today’s world? I realize that the unemployment rates and poverty levels are at an all time high, and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not yet visible, but our very own local American government put us in this position by allowing businesses to out source for “cheap” labor in order to provide “cheaper” products and services. Having said that, the DREAM Act, is not a law or bill which will provide citizenship to all illegal immigrants.[/I]
You approach this subject assuming that multiculturalism and diversity are ‘assets’ to a country. If you like history so much, look at how the aforementioned concepts led to the decline and eventual breakup of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the USSR, Yugoslavia, the Balkans, etc. Contemporary examples of ‘diversity at work’ like Iraq, South Africa, Brazil, India, and Pakistan, among others, illustrate the futility of multicultural and multiethnic democracy. Nations with intense ethnic, cultural, and religious divisions are almost always more violent, corrupt, and dysfunctional. Our country was founded by Europeans and most of our cities were built by Europeans.
Europeans are a fairly homogeneous bunch, genetically, culturally, and historically, and those classical European values and norms that we once celebrated with pride were the catalysts that made this country a powerhouse for over a century. Since the 1960s the ‘founding stock’ of this country has been stripped of its ethnic and cultural identity. It has gotten so bad that almost every other ethnic group in this country openly advocates their own interests except for the European whites, who, ironically, are charged with paying almost all of the nation’s taxes, and who built all of the infrastructure and institutions these activist newcomers currently benefit from.
[I]The DREAM Act gives a chance at life to those children who were brought here, without choice by their parents, and still managed to learn the language and excel in their education. These young adults made it into colleges and universities across this nation, and believe it or not, this is the very nation that they call home. These students are not asking for anything to be given to them, they are asking for a fair chance to work very hard to obtain a good future. They are asking for something that nobody, no matter who the person is, should ever be denied. [/I]
As for where these immigrant youths call home, I am always struck by the brazen examples of Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Haitian nationalism on everyone’s car, hanging from windows, or draped over front porches. Driving down 836 looking for an American flag on someone’s car is like trying to find Waldo. Immigrant enclaves in Miami, or anywhere in the US, prove that a disturbingly high number of immigrants are in fact proud of the miserable countries they intended to flee. So yes, I am highly suspicious of your “I am here to study, America is my home” comment.
[I]I was born in this country to a mother who is Caucasian and my father, although he is legally documented, was brought here by his parents when he was eight years old, from Panama. If my father was not given this very opportunity, that today we ridiculously fight for, perhaps I would not be the successful Healthcare Management Professional that I am today. I believe that these people, who have been referred to as DREAMERS, deserve the same opportunities that I received. After all, aren’t we all human? Weren’t all men and women created equal?The DREAM Act offers something very real to many people who, I know, have a lot to offer America. [/I]
‘California’ is a textbook example of what happens to your state when you add millions of poor immigrants (legal or illegal) who are dependent on government handouts. As a result, California’s (European descent) middle class, tired of being used as ‘tax cows’, have been fleeing the state for the past decade. Not surprisingly the state’s debt rating has been “junk status” since last summer. As stated in that article, there are roads in the Central Valley that have been paved for 50 years but are now reverting back to dirt, just like in Mexico! The disaster that is California should serve as a warning to other liberal states who are flirting with California’s libertine attempt to build a Marxist utopia.
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