For those of you who never heard of it (and somehow I hadn’t until today), this Act with a lofty name refers to federal legislation that would allow children of illegal immigrants to apply for legal residency under certain conditions.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (The “DREAM Act”) is a piece of proposed federal legislation that was introduced in the US Senate, and the US House of Representatives on March 26, 2009. This bill would provide certain undocumented immigrant students who graduate from US high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the US as children, and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency. The students will obtain temporary residency for a lapse of six years. Within the six year period, a qualified student must attend college, and earn a two year degree, or serve in the military for two years in order to earn citizenship after the six years period. If student does not comply with either his/her college requirement or military service requirement, temporary residency will be taken away and student will be subjected to deportation.

The Dream Act made the news today because Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust wrote a letter to federal lawmakers expressing her support for the legislation.

After reading the Boston Globe article that announced this news, I started to read some of the comments posted below it. Out of the first 20 comments posted, 18 expressed vehement disagreement with Faust’s bold move. (One so much so that it had to be removed by the Globe). Ouch!

I’ll admit, I was initially pretty conflicted by this one. On the one hand, it’s easy to see why many Americans, especially in these trying times, are outraged at the prospect of giving scarce resources to children of illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens and immigrants who are here legally. On the other hand, it’s hard not to sympathize with students who were brought to this country through no fault of their own and are just trying to build a life for themselves.

In the end, I decided to agree with Faust. My vote is in favor of the Dream Act. And here’s why:

If it is relatively easy for foreign students living abroad, who have absolutely no connection with the U.S. whatsoever, to come to this country to study, work, and eventually become citizens, then why make it impossible for children who are already living here?

When foreign students apply to an American university and get accepted, (as legions do every year), they are given an F-1 student visa which enables them to come to this country for the duration of their academic program. While in the U.S., they can work on campus, obtain a social security number, and then upon completion of their academic program, easily apply for and be issued an OPT (optional practical training) work authorization card giving them permission to legally work in this country in their field of study for one year. If students decide to remain in the U.S. beyond that year, they simply find a company that will sponsor them for a work visa followed by a green card (or find an American citizen to marry), and they can then continue along the path to citizenship.

How are these foreign students so different from the children of illegal immigrants? Both are talented enough to be accepted into American universities, and will presumably enter into the workforce following graduation contributing to both the brainpower and economic growth of our country. Should children of illegal immigrants be penalized simply because their point of origin at the time of their college application is the United States? Should they be punished because their parents broke the law? Since when do we make children pay for their parents’ crimes? It doesn’t make sense. Unless we suddenly decide to close our borders to all immigrants and foreign students in order to reserve membership in the American economy exclusively for people born on U.S. soil, and as long as we seek to attract the best and the brightest people to this great country, it doesn’t make sense to penalize some students born elsewhere and not others. Not to mention the fact that these kids already received a free American public school education since they arrived here, and managed to excel enough to get accepted into college. Shouldn’t we want them to give back to the country by legally joining the workforce and becoming tax-paying productive citizens?

Whether these students should be charged resident or non-resident tuition is a whole other issue, but in my opinion, a secondary one. It will be very interesting to see how this turns out.

(Photo: Korean Resource Center’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)