In mid-November, a young, Evangelical honors student, Bernard Pastor, was turned over to immigration authorities in Butler County, Ohio after a minor traffic accident. Bernard, 18, is now facing deportation back to Guatemala, a country he barely remembers, but his classmates and Evangelical leaders in Cincinnati and through out Ohio are calling for his release and for passage of the DREAM Act.
The DREAM ACT is a bipartisan bill which will be voted on by the Senate this week. The Dream Act would allow Bernard Pastor and thousands of other young people like him a chance to stay in America and give back to the only country they know as home. Under the DREAM Act, young people who came to the country as children, but lack legal immigration status, would earn their citizenship by serving in the U.S. military or attending college.
The Senate had been scheduled to vote on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act on Thursday morning. However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that he wanted to scrap the Senate version in favor of a different version passed Wednesday night by the House.
Now, if Reid manages to get enough votes for the bill, it can go straight to President Barack Obama for his signature instead of having to go back to the House. Reid won a 59-40 vote last Thursday to table the Senate version of the bill.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who is a leading conservative opposition to the bill, said it would reward lawlessness and encourage more illegal immigration if passed.
An estimated 65,000 undocumented immigrants students graduate from high school each year. However, it is not known how many of those were eligible go on to complete the further requirements. It is estimated that only 7,000–13,000 college students nationally can fulfill the further obligations.
