http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/students-supporters-hand-deliver-resolution-1.2172900
Students, supporters hand-deliver resolution
By Virginia Kiddy
Print this article
Share this article
Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Updated: Sunday, February 28, 2010
DREAM
Debbie Laurens graduated from Lake Howell High School with a 4.0 GPA, AP and honors classes and enough scholarships to cover all her college costs, but a month before graduation she discovered she wouldn’t be able to go.
“It’s embarrassing,” Laurens said. “I’ve been out of high school for three years and have nothing to show for it.”
Laurens was 6 months old when her parents brought her to America from Venezuela. They were visiting on a travel visa but decided to not return to their country, illegally overstaying their visa, Laurens said.
Though her two younger sisters were born here and are U.S. citizens, Laurens is an undocumented immigrant, meaning she can’t drive, work or pay taxes.
While some institutions may allow undocumented students to attend school, she lost her scholarships and can’t continue her education. She lives with a friend’s family in Winter Springs.
“The most important thing to me was my education,” Laurens said. “It’s the most important thing to all of us. And even though I couldn’t work or drive, that really sucked too, but I didn’t think they could take away the education.”
Laurens is working with local organizations urging legislators to sponsor and support the DREAM Act in Congress. She helps table outside the UCF Student Union, raising student awareness.
The DREAM Act would permit high school graduates who immigrated to the U.S. before they were 16 years old to gain conditional residency contingent upon military service or attending college for two years. The idea is that children should not be punished for the transgressions of their parents, Laurens said.
“What are we supposed to do? We’re young adults that could be a benefit to the economy, and we’re just taking up space,” Laurens said. “We can’t go back to a country we don’t know.”
An estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high schools nationally each year, according to the Urban Institute.
UCF’s Student Government Association passed Resolution 42-11 showing the university’s support of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act on Feb. 4. Line 25 reads: “The University of Central Florida would be enriched by welcoming deserving, talented, hard-working young immigrants and allowing these students to realize their educational dreams.”
UCF students and other supporters gathered Friday near Lake Eola and walked to Sen. Bill Nelson’s Orlando office to hand-deliver a copy of the SGA resolution.
Dante John Terminello, an economics major who has already received a marketing degree from UCF, is one of the students who delivered the resolution. He is part of the Orlando Farmworker Supporters, which helped start the Orlando DREAM Act Coalition. He, with others, helped to get the resolution passed at UCF.
“The resolution is more symbolic you know; it doesn’t actually change anything at UCF,” Terminello said.
Supporters are taking the resolution to legislators around the state and are able to say that the third largest undergraduate university in the nation supports the act, Terminello said.
More than a dozen people, including UCF students, local high schoolers, undocumented immigrants and other supporters from the area crowded into Nelson’s office in two rotations presenting the resolution and lobbying their causes to his staff. Some groups presented information about comprehensive immigration reform, which includes the DREAM Act.
The organizations represented included the UCF Colombian Student Association, which sponsored the SGA resolution, Students Working for Equal Rights, the Orlando Farmworker Supporters, the Orlando DREAM Act Coalition, and the Youth and Young Adult Network of the National Farm Worker Ministry, known as YAYA.
Lisa Marshall, deputy director of constituency services, and Peggy Gustave, constituent advocate, accepted the folders from the demonstrators and said they’d pass them along to Washington.
“What you’re doing is not in vain,” Marshall said to the group.
Nelson is one of 33 senators co-sponsoring the DREAM Act, but the group traveled to his office to urge him to take a leadership role.
“We just need him to take a lead on it, to actually do something about it, which hasn’t happened,” said Carolina Agudelo, a UCF junior political science major, Colombian Student Association event coordinator and YAYA treasurer.
In a statement, Marshall said, “It remains unclear when the senate judiciary committee will take up the issue.”
The DREAM Act was introduced in Congress in 2001, but failed by eight votes in 2007.
“If you grew up here in the U.S., you work hard, you should be able to go to school,” Terminello said.
No comments:
Post a Comment