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FROM THE EDITOR

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Staff

DREAM deferred

It was not a proud moment last Saturday when a Democratic senator from North Carolina cast the 41st vote against the DREAM Act, a common-sense piece of legislation that addresses a troubling consequence of our broken immigration system.

The act allows a path to citizenship, through college or military service, for the tens of thousands of young people brought here as small children. Nationwide, an estimated 65,000 undocumented young people graduate each year from high school in this country. Many of them know no other country, yet through no fault of their own can’t become a part of the one in which they were raised.

There is no doubt that as a state senator who was often the education budget’s point person, now-U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan is aware of the inherent unfairness of the current, failed system. She’s got to know about the positive economic impact, as well as the dramatic difference in the lives of these young people and their potential to contribute, that would have resulted from the act’s passage.

In communities like ours, in which there is a large immigrant population, the reality of this policy is evident. There are students in our schools today who will graduate with honors and yet not be able to fully test just how far they can go nor enjoy the rights and opportunities afforded their classmates.

Unfortunately, on Saturday Hagan joined with Republicans and a handful of other Democrats in refusing to allow the act to come to a vote. As one proponent of the act said, the defeat “crushed the dreams” of those young people to earn their citizenship.

Hagan said she voted against the act because it should be part of comprehensive immigration reform. Someday, perhaps, we’ll see such a thing. It is, after all, one of the truly bipartisan issues out there. Someday. But not soon. That would require a complete turnaround in the politics of immigration reform, an issue that has become more and more divisive out of political expediency.

We trust that since our senator has taken such a tough stand, that winning comprehensive immigration reform will be a fight she’ll pursue with vigor.

Until then, there will be that nagging sense that with an eye on a 2014 re-election race on her hands, she is anticipating a more conservative electorate and positioning herself accordingly.

Until then, there will be many, many children, including some right here in the heart of this community, who will wait, dreams on hold.

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