The DREAM Act Needs Your Call Now

Immigration Matters regularly features the views of the nation's leading immigrant rights advocates.

Two years ago, on the eve of a major event in Washington, D.C., that would have called on Congress to pass the DREAM Act, we got the news that one of the youth that had planned to join us in Washington had killed himself. He had lost hope that the DREAM Act could ever pass, that there would ever be a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States. He thought that any hope for a future was slipping away.

Each year as many as 65,000 promising and talented students graduate from high school or college and find themselves stuck -- unable to go on to higher education or enter the workforce -- because of their immigration status. However, passage of the DREAM Act would allow these students to earn a path to citizenship either through higher education or military service.

Immigrant communities need this important legislation now. In the wake of the Senate's failure to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, the real human consequences of not passing any relief for America's undocumented population are clear

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