Students want the DREAM Act to become reality

[alp227]

The student body president at Cal State Fresno. The drum major at UCLA. Student senators, class presidents, team captains and club officers at community colleges.

Scores of student leaders across California are illegal immigrants who came to this state as children.

With Congress expected to vote as early as this week on immigration reform that would give these students a pathway to legal status, a new generation of scholars who were raised in California but not born here are shedding their secrecy and speaking about their lives.

They have a sense of urgency. If the bill, known as the DREAM Act, does not pass before a more conservative Congress takes power in January, it is unlikely to pass for years to come.

"At first my parents said, 'What are you doing? You're risking so much,' " said David Cho, the UCLA drum major. "But I told them, 'It's not only me. There are thousands of students like me trapped in a broken system. Unless our generation speaks out, the politicians won't tackle it. They have to see our faces.' "

Cho, 21, who conducts the 250-member UCLA marching band in front of 75,000 people at the Rose Bowl, came to the U.S. from South Korea at the age of 9. It wasn't until he was accepted to UCLA that his father showed him a letter saying the family's visa wasn't valid.

"I grew up here, worked hard, got into UCLA. And there I was staring at this letter telling me to go 'home,' when this is home," Cho said. "My whole world flipped upside down."

With no papers, Cho can attend school but not legally work, drive or receive financial aid. He sleeps on a friend's couch or sometimes at the UCLA library. He tutors SAT students 30 hours a week for cash. More than once he's depended on charitable "food closets" on campus to get something to eat.

He has a double major in international economics and Korean, maintains a 3.6 grade-point average and is on schedule to graduate a quarter early. He plays seven musical instruments.

He was terrified the night before he first stood at a rally in Los Angeles for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act and said: "I'm undocumented."

Full article: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dream-act-20101128,0,607085,full.story

Reading the first paragraph of this article, I think that conservatives may have a good point about the "illegal immigrant invasion". Oh wait, back to reality. I commend these students for working hard and to standing up to the self-centered "I'm entitled to everything/me first" smug citizen class with an obsession for immigrant-bashing.

[dkf]

1. He just admitted to income tax evasion.

Not smart.

[alp227]

2. One of my friends told me that tutoring income is untaxed. n/t

[Travis_0004]

3. Not true

He should be claiming that money, which is subject to normal income tax, plus the Self employment tax. Its not easily traced, so it doesn't surprise me if a lot of people don't claim it, but that doesn't mean its exempt.