Category: Uncategorized

Each year, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from our nation’s high
schools. Brought by their parents as young children, many have grown up
in the United States, attended U.S. K-12 schools, and share in our
American culture and values. Some have little memory of their homeland
or their native language. Like their U.S.-born peers, these individuals
share the same dream of pursuing a higher education. Unfortunately, due
to their immigration status, they are typically barred from many of the
opportunities that currently make a college education affordable –
in-state tuition rates, state and federal grants and loans, private
scholarships, and the ability to work legally to earn their way through
college. In effect, through no act of their own, they are denied the
opportunity to share in the "American Dream." If passed, the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien
Minors (DREAM) Act,” S. 2075, a bipartisan federal proposal led by
Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Richard Lugar
(R-IN), would facilitate access to postsecondary educational
opportunities for immigrant students in the United States who currently
face barriers in pursuing a college education. The “DREAM Act” would
also allow hardworking immigrant youth who have long resided in the
U.S. the chance to adjust their status, enabling them to contribute
fully to our society.

The “DREAM Act” was introduced in the U.S. Senate in November
2005. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) is the sponsor of the bill, and the
lead Republican cosponsors are Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard
Lugar (R-IN). The Senate Judiciary Committee must now consider and
approve the “DREAM Act” before the bill can be considered for a vote by
the full Senate. Similar versions of this bill garnered significant
support from both Democrats and Republicans last Congress when it was
approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee with a 16-3 bipartisan vote.
In addition, last year, 48 senators and 153 representatives signed on
in support of the “DREAM Act” and its companion bill in the U.S. House
of Representatives. The House version of the “DREAM Act”, which has
been championed by Representatives Chris Cannon (R-UT), Howard Berman
(D-CA), and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), currently awaits
reintroduction.

NCLR Position

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
urges passage of the “DREAM Act,” S. 2075. The “DREAM Act,” which
provides a path to U.S. citizenship for hardworking and talented
immigrant students who have been raised in the U.S., is critical to
improving the pipeline from high school to college and providing
meaningful employment for Latinos.

it’s not the dagger through the swastika that bothers me. fascism as a social practice should be killed.

but to say that "the only good fascist is a dead one" evokes for me
re-inscription of the form of masculinity that empowers fascism in the
first place (what Stan Goff calls the gendered degeneration of American
politics).

it also sounds like an echo of the public morality of a death penalty
state where imagining the deaths of real people is not the moral
equivalent of war, but war itself.

Woody Guthrie’s guitar said "this machine kills fascists", but it was not a dagger that he carried, was it? besides, if there are fascists, as there are racists, the problem is
poorly understood as individual existence of any sort. fascism and
racism are ways of ordering social reality. and like I say, I have no
problem killing those orders. but how do you touch the problem of
killing an order of things via the symbolic execution of individuals?

it is precisely by mistaking racism and fascism as something confined
to Klan membership that encourages everyone to ignore widespread
ignorance and apathy. notice for example how Klan arguments against gay
marriage are no different than arguments propounded from pulpits and
podiums everywhere else in Texas. they are fascist and racist arguments
no doubt.

the slogan that "the only good fascist is a dead one", because
it re-inscribes fascist masculinity, death penalty mentality, and
ideological misdirection as to the problem that fascism poses, takes
the bait that Klan logic offers. it is therefore an expression of pure
reaction.

please re-consider–gm

The Edgewood defendants, led by MALDEF attorneys, had emphasized
inequities in facilities funding as a glaring example of
‘constitutional inefficiency’ in the structure of Texas
education. But the court refused to isolate the problem of
facilities from overall funding equity, and then argued that raw
disparities in existing facilities could not meet the burden of proof.

Despite poor facilities, Edgwood and Alvarado plaintiffs (with only one
exception) were maintaining their accreditation, said the court, so the
educational impact of poor buildings was not so obvious. Without
a stronger connection being argued between poor facilities and poor
education, the court said it had not enough evidence to rule
inequitable facilities unconstitutional. Twenty five percent of
the state’s districts were not even charging facilities taxes.

The State defendants also argue that to prove constitutional
inefficiency the intervenors must offer evidence of an inability to
provide for a general diffusion of knowledge without additional
facilities, and that they have failed to do so. Again, we agree.
Efficiency requires only substantially equal access to revenue for
facilities necessary for an adequate system.

The slideshows of cracked walls and ceilings that were so
compelling to view in court did not carry much weight within the legal
framework constructed by the Texas Supreme Court.–gm

Although precise dating is impossible, several scientists
speculated on the basis of its spread and variation that the
mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. That
would be consistent with research showing that a wave of
ancestral humans migrated northward and eastward out of
Africa about 50,000 years ago.

–Rick Weiss, Washington Post (Dec. 15, 2005)