Faculty Statement on DREAM ActFaculty Endorses DREAM Act
The faculty of Saint Paul School of Theology strongly supports the immediate passage of the DREAM Act because we believe it represents an act of national compassion to a group of young people caught in a situation not of their own making. Estimates are that 65,000 undocumented individuals graduate from high school every year. Upon graduation they become aliens in the only home they can remember: where they were educated, learned English, and got high school jobs. They have almost no prospects for further education or significant work. For them deportation means being delivered to a truly foreign country with little or no family support.
The DREAM act would allow undocumented high school graduates to pursue higher education or serve in the U.S. military while earning a path to citizenship. These young people, most of them Hispanic, are our neighbors, they have contributed positively to our churches and our nation, and they deserve our support.
Failure to pass the federal DREAM Act virtually ensures that the Dreamers remain in poverty, out of college, and working outside the legitimate work force. Passing the DREAM Act offers an opportunity for higher education or military service, citizenship, and contributions to the tax-paying work force and society in general. This is not only a Christian ideal, it is also an ideal that resonates with what is best in the United States. |
