Local students promote Dream Act

A group of Southeast area students present Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Los Angeles, with a framed certificate promoting the Dream Act, now in Congress. From left in back are Omar Pichardo, Maywood; Rocio Acuña, South Gate; Javier Rodriguez, San Gabriel; and Daisy Zepeda, Huntington Park. In front are Christine Acosta, Cudahy; Roybal-Allard and Yolanda Santoyo, Los Angeles. The act offers immigrant youth a path to citizenship.

By WAVE STAFF

Story Published: May 14, 2009 at 4:53 PM PDT

Story Updated: May 14, 2009 at 4:53 PM PDT

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A Maywood-based group of students and area residents traveled to Washington April 30 to support the proposed American Dream Act, giving children of undocumented residents a path to citizenship.

Members of the United Students of the Southeast Cities met with Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Los Angeles, a co-author of the bill now in Congress, and presented her with a framed copy of a resolution of support for the Dream Act, approved March 2 by the Huntington Park City Council.

Other area cities formally supporting the bill are Maywood, Bell, Cudahy and South Gate.

The organization is based in the city of Maywood in the congresswoman’s 34th District and is dedicated to politically mobilizing area young people to gain support in the community and on all levels of government for passage of the Dream Act, a Roybal-Allard aide said.

The measure (H.R. 1751), which Roybal-Allard co-authored along with Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Florida, provides a path to legal immigration status for college-bound children who have lived most of their lives in this country, but do not have legal immigration status.

Under the American Dream Act, qualified students would be eligible for temporary legal immigration status upon high school graduation that would lead to permanent legal residency if they go to college or serve in the military.

The American Dream Act would also eliminate a federal provision that discourages states from providing in-state college tuition to immigrant students who have long resided in their states.

Members of the group were Omar Pichardo of the Maywood Academy, Rocio Acuña, a graduate of South Gate High School; Javier Rodriguez, who attends Don Bosco Tech in Rosemead; Daisy Zepeda of Gage Middle School in Huntington Park; Christine Acosta, of Cudahy, a student at the Maywood Academy; Yolanda Santoyo, a social worker from Los Angeles; and Oscar Magana of Maywood.

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