PERCHANCE TO DREAM

Should a child whose parents entered the country illegally be granted the privilege of enrolling in school here? It’s a question that has excited much discussion—but that has yet to be decided.

Immigration reform is one of those political third rails that can fry an unwary politician, and the thought of granting citizenship to immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally has divided Congress since at least the Reagan era. And what of their children? As University of Houston law professor Olivas writes, there is widespread support both for a path to citizenship and for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act and related legislation, which would both grant legal status to such children and allow them to enter school at resident rates of tuition. Residence and domicile are legally not the same thing. The last time the DREAM Act had a chance of passing through Congress unscathed was 2007, Olivas suggests, but it encountered difficulties: Sponsor Edward Kennedy became ill, Arlen Specter backed away from it, and when Barack Obama, another sponsor, entered the White House, he propounded “so many major initiatives” that “all the oxygen in the room was being inhaled.” It wasn’t until 2009 that Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, acknowledged the plight of undocumented children, though she placed emphasis on border security instead. Thus it is that the individual states essentially decide the issue for themselves and are likely to continue to do so until truly comprehensive immigration reform is undertaken at the national level, something unlikely to happen under Donald Trump. Indeed, notes the author, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sheltering those undocumented children from deportation, has suffered “death by a thousand cuts” under the hostile eye of the Trump system, and the DREAM Act continues to languish, as it has for two decades.

An accessible and pointed study in the law of both education and citizenship.