The DREAM Act

Introduction

At first glance, one of the most ubiquitous paradoxes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries seems to be the global persecution, criminalization, and prosecution of immigrants aimed at restricting the flow of people, while all other aspects of human life including information, technology, capital, and jobs are flowing across borders at unprecedented levels. On closer examination it is evident that states have enacted increasingly punitive enforcement-oriented immigration policies to reinforce nationalist ideologies and state power in an era where borders and boundaries are ever more porous, and where questions abound regarding the potential decline of nationstates. The effect of these policies has been a greater number of immigrants who are rendered illegal and whose deportability is a source of power, control, and profit for states and corporations (Mahony, 459).

Meanwhile, in response to the widespread use of detention and deportation to reinforce national hegemony, anti-deportation and antidetention activism has gained momentum globally over the past ten years.2 As demonstrated in Nicholas De Genova and Nathalie Peutz's edited volume, The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement, deportation has become a global phenomenon in part because states are collaborating with one another, as well as imitating each other's policies. Thus, an interesting topic to explore is if the proliferation of immigrant rights groups and, specifically, antideportation movements employs similar strategies globally, and if so, whether the similarities are coincidental or deliberate.

Discussion and Analysis

In order to examine the global connections among anti-deportation movements, this article will focus on how the undocumented youth-led movement for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) in the United States relates to anti-deportation movements in other nations. The DREAM Act, first introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives5 and Senate6 in 2001, is a narrowly tailored bill that would allow eligible undocumented youth to legalize their status in the United States. Since 2001, the DREAM Act has undergone numerous revisions, and has been reintroduced in every Congress.

The version of the DREAM Act voted on in the House8 and Senate9 in 2010 would have provided conditional nonimmigrant status to undocumented immigrants under the age of thirty at the time of the bill's enactment who (1) arrived in the United States before the age of sixteen; (2) lived in the United States for at least five years; (3) have no criminal record; and (4) demonstrate good moral character.

Those meeting the eligibility criteria would be granted conditional nonimmigrant status for ten years, during which time they would have to graduate from a U.S. high school (or equivalent), and complete an associate's degree, or two years towards a four-year degree, or serve two years in the military in order to apply for permanent residency. Prior to the vote on the DREAM Act in 2010, undocumented youth escalated their activism to increase public awareness of the bill, as well as to persuade Congress to vote on the DREAM Act. Consequently, the DREAM Act movement provides an excellent case for examining immigrant ...