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This is Our Country Too: Undocumented Immigrant Youth Organizing and the Battle for the DREAM Act Carlos Amador I attempt to go to sleep inside one of the tents on a cold night of July 2010, when I realize that I have to make a last stop to the restroom. I am with ten other hunger strikers plus volunteers camping in the corner of two major streets in the west side of Los Angeles, California. We have been outside of the offices of U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein for over a week as part of a hunger strike calling for the passage of the federal DREAM Act to legalize immigrant undocumented students. I call a volunteer to walk me to the gas station across the street where we can use the facilities. I am low in energy and walking becomes difficult. I have an empty stomach, but at least the headaches are gone by now. That morning we made the collective decision to continue with the hunger strike for another five days. The decision did not frighten anyone in the group as we stayed committed to the immigrant youth movement. We were continuing in the tradition of Cesar Chavez for a nonviolent struggle; this time for the rights of undocumented immigrants across the country. Less than an hour after I went to sleep two cars collided just a few feet away from our camp. Seeing the accident made me realize the lack of protection in our camp from outside factors. The cold nights, the hard floor we slept on, the loud noise of traffic, and the long days without food, they all reminded me of how much we desire to belong to the country we see as ours too. As I and other Dream activists camped in west Los Angeles on the fifteen-day hunger strike, many more undocumented youth around the country actively organized for the passage of the federal DREAM Act by the end of the year. 1 In 2010, the youth took off as the leading force of the immigrant rights movement in the midst of an anti-immigrant drive throughout the nation. The passage of Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona on April 23, 2010 epitomized the hijacking of the immigration debate. The bill, disguised as a reform of the immigration system at the state level, criminalized the immigrant community by allowing police to question the status of anyone suspected to be in the country without documents. 2 Despite the anti-immigrant sentiment across the country, immigrant youth successfully brought the federal DREAM Act to the forefront of the political arena in 2010 through a nonviolent struggle. The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would provide a pathway to citizenship for youth who came to the U.S. before the age of 16 and are no older than 35. These youth must be in the country for at least five years before the enactment of the bill, graduate from U.S. high schools, Critical Planning Summer 2011 108
and hold good moral standing to be eligible for the DREAM Act. If eligible, the youth have to complete at least two years of college or military services in a six-year temporary residency period. Although restrictive, this ten-year-old federal proposal has faced opposition from both conservatives and liberals who perceive the bill either as a disguised amnesty for immigrants or a piece-meal bill that compromises the possibilities of a more comprehensive reform. 3 In March 2009, the introduction of the DREAM Act provided hope to thousands of undocumented youth who had advocated for the legislation years prior. It is estimated that 2.1 million undocumented children, youth and young adults live in the country today, with 26 percent of them residing in California. 4 Furthermore, it is estimated that 65,000 undocumented youth graduate from U.S. high schools every year. 5 Their commitment to the all-or-nothing Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) package introduced in 2001 and to the mainstream immigrant rights groups ended during the 2010 campaign and a refreshed and energized movement emerged. At this point, a radical exposure to the nation of the crisis that undocumented youth live every day was eminent. As undocumented students and immigrants we are relegated to live in the shadows of society. Most of us arrived here at a young age with our parents who decided to stay in this county for job opportunities or to flee unsafe conditions in our countries of origin. We grow up as Americans; attending public schools, becoming involved in sports, and excelling in our education. Our American Dream suddenly faces a social, economic, and legal barrier as soon as we turn eighteen. We often were unaware of our immigration status until we graduate from high school because our parents do not disclose it to us to protect us or because of shame. Suddenly we are no longer able to access higher education and apply for most types of financial aid as the rest of our citizen friends. We cannot legally work because we do not possess a social security number, but we still work and pay taxes. 6 We risk interrogation and possibly deportation by the police because we cannot obtain a license to drive. Our lives are contradictory as we become involved in American politics but cannot vote. Undocumented immigrants live in a perpetual state of crisis and undocumented youth decided they could not wait any more. As the Democratic Party and mainstream immigrant rights groups continued selling their CIR message, undocumented youth mobilized to shift the immigration discourse. On March 10, 2010, the first National Coming Out Day of Action was held in different parts of the nation. Hundreds of undocumented youth came out to the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Phoenix, and Miami declaring themselves as Undocumented and Unafraid, a term that became the slogan of the movement. 7 Coming out, a term borrowed from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement, became equally transformative to the undocumented students who publicly claimed this country as theirs. Borrowing the term from the LGBTQ movement was not coincidental as many of the movement s leaders are both undocumented and queer. 8 Undocumented students no longer felt ashamed of their status and instead decried Congress who should be ashamed of holding the students lives hostage because of their political impasse. Dream students continued pressuring elected officials and gaining allies (U.S. citizens and residents who 109 Critical Planning Summer 2011
also support the movement) along the way. In the meantime, Democratic leaders and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus were not willing to kill the CIR debate. As the Arizona SB1070 law was being signed, a small group of undocumented students under The Dream Is Coming project were planning to escalate the campaign. A breaking point of the movement occurred in the offices of U.S. Senator John McCain in Tucson, Arizona on May 17, 2010 -- on the morning of the 56th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education which racially integrated public schools. Mohammad Abdollahi, Tania Inzueta, Yahaira Carrillo, Lizbeth Mateo, all undocumented, and ally U.S. resident Raul Alcaraz, engaged in a sit-in action inside McCain s office demanding he champion the DREAM Act. 9 It is important to acknowledge that three of the undocumented students were females, and three were queer. Grassroots leaders of the movement emerged before the eyes of the nation. At six o clock in the afternoon, four out of the five protestors were arrested by the Tucson Police Department. The collective decided to have Tania walk out before the arrests because she was the most at-risk of deportation. She became the spokesperson to conduct press interviews. 10 Three days later on May 20, nine U.S. citizen allies engaged in a civil disobedience action for over two hours by blocking Wilshire Boulevard in the west side of Los Angeles near the University of California at Los Angeles. 11 They were surrounded by dozens of Dreamers protesting until their arrests. The McCain sit-in and the Wilshire action became the call for undocumented students and allies around the country to escalate and push for the DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill. Support for the DREAM Act continued increasing and the youth, through the power of their stories, gained allies from important organizations and corporations such as Microsoft, the College Board, and the American Federation of Labor Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). The volunteered-led movement for the DREAM Act mirrored the 1960s Civil Rights movement. Many of the tactics used by the immigrant youth movement were directly influenced by the nonviolent movement of the sixties. As the Freedom Riders (students and activists Four undocumented students engage in an act of civil disobedience on November 17, 2010 outside of the offices of U.S. Senator John McCain in Washington, D.C. Photo by Carlos Amador. Critical Planning Summer 2011 110
Jorge Gutierrez from the Orange County DREAM Team, shares his experience as queer undocumented student during the Hunger Strike vigil on August 4, 2010 outside of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Adrian Gonzales. in mixed-race buses) traveled south defying the segregationist laws in 1961, undocumented students traveled with their U.S. citizen counterparts across the country in the Dream Freedom Rides in the summer of 2010. The sit-in movement of Nashville, Tennessee, where over a hundred African-American students were arrested when asked to be served in the White Only lunch counters, was re-lived in the Senate Hart building in Washington D.C. when twenty-one undocumented students sat-in and were arrested with the risk of facing deportation on July 20, 2010. 12 A 15,000 mile walk from Miami, Florida to Washington D.C. from January to May 1, 2010, known as the Trail of Dreams, resembles the Cesar Chavez s pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento for better treatment of farm workers, and the walks of King. A new civil rights movement in the U.S. was transpiring with youth ready to give back to the country they call home. On September 21, 2010, the DREAM Act and the Don t Ask Don t Tell (DADT) bill were brought to a vote in the Senate floor as attachments to the Defense Authorization Act of 2010. Thousands of undocumented students mobilized telephone calls and lobbied legislators to for a successful vote. September s vote was not favorable for the students as the DREAM Act and DADT did not reach the 60 votes needed to pass. 13 Efforts to push the DREAM Act forward after the mid-term elections included the four students arrested in Senator McCain s office in D.C. in November; hunger strikes in Phoenix, Indiana, and Texas; hundreds of thousands of calls to Congress; and rallies and press conferences in key cities. The efforts produced positive results and the bill was considered for a vote in both houses of Congress. A historic vote occurred on December 8, 2010, when the DREAM Act passed the House by 216 to 198. 14 111 Critical Planning Summer 2011
Act eligible students. New leaders will arise through the Dream Summer internship program coordinated by the University of California at Los Angeles Labor Center. As the movement matures, opportunities for meaningful victories arise and the hope that the DREAM Act will pass becomes more real. On December 18, 2010, a more restrictive version of the bill came to the Senate floor for a cloture vote where it failed with a 55 to 41 vote. Ironically, three Republican Senators voted in favor Bennett (R-UT), Lugar (R-IN), Murkowski (R-AK) while five Democrat Senators voted against the measure Baucus (D-MT), Hagan (D-NC), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Tester (D-MT). 15 The DREAM Act was defeated in the Senate floor because it did not meet the 60 vote requirement although it had a bi-partisan majority vote and the support from the House. In the weeks following the Senate vote, undocumented youth reflected on their work and the movement. Today there are two national networks of undocumented youth; the United We Dream (UWD) network and the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA). 16 Currently there are seventeen state battles to improve access to higher education for immigrant students including battles in some of the twelve states who already have laws that provide in-state college tuition for undocumented students. 17 Immigrant youth continue to pressure the Obama administration to halt all deportations of DREAM Top left: The immigrant youth contingency demands the passage of the DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill, during the May 1st, 2010 Immigrant Rights protest in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Bridgette Amador. Above: Day 15 outside the tent used during the Hunger Strike for the DREAM Act in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Adrian Gonzales. Critical Planning Summer 2011 112
Notes 1 Gillis, C. (July 31, 2010). Hungering for a DREAM: students protest at Senator Feinstein s office. L.A. Activist. Retrieved on August 10, 2011: http://www.laactivist. com/2010/07/31/hungering-for-a-dream-students-protestat-senator-feinstein%e2%80%99s-office/ 2 N.A. (2010). Senate Bill 1070. State of Arizona Fortyninth Legislature, Second Regular Session. Retrieved August 10, 2011: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/ bills/sb1070s.pdf 3 N.A. (June 24, 2009). Schummer Announces Principles for Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill in Works in Senate. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer website. Retrieved August 10, 2011: http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/ record.cfm?id=314990 8 Abdollahi, M. (March 5, 2010). National Coming Out of the Shadows Week March 15th to the 21st. Dream Activists. Retrieved on August 14, 2011: http://www. dreamactivist.org/blog/2010/03/05/comeout/ 9 Dwyer, D. (May 19, 2010). Immigrant Students Face Deportation After Arrest in McCain Arizona Office. ABC News. Retrieved May 30, 2011: http://abcnews.go.com/ Politics/undocumented-student-immigrants-face-deportation-mccain-office-protest/story?id=10689042 10 Puente, T. (May 18, 2010). Immigrant students arrested at McCain s office to be arraigned Tuesday; Chicago s Tania Unzueta not arrested. Chicago Now. Retrieved May 30, 2011: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicanisima/2010/05/immigrant-students-arrested-at-mccainsoffice-to-be-arraigned-tuesday-chicagos-tania-unzuetanot-arrested.html 4 Batalova, J. & McHugh, M. (2010). DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries. Migration Policy Institute. Washington, D.C. 5 Passel, J. S. (2003). Further Demographic Information Relating to the DREAM Act. The Urban Institute. Washington, D.C. 6 N.A. (April 18, 2011). Unauthorized Immigrants Pay Taxes, Too: Estimates of the State and Local Taxes paid by Unauthorized Immigrant Households. Immigration Policy Center. Washington, D.C. 7 Bennion, D. (March 10, 2010). National Coming Out Day for Undocumented Youth. Citizen Orange. Retrieved August 14, 2011: http://www.citizenorange.com/ orange/2010/03/national-coming-out-day-for-un.html 11 Coker, M. (May 21, 2010). Jonathan Bibriesca, OC Dream Act Activist, Among 9 Arrested in Westwood. OC Weekly. Retrieved August 14th, 2010: http://blogs. ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2010/05/jonathan_bibriesca_dream_act_w.php 12 Bahrampour, T. (July 21, 2010). Students disclose illegal status as part of push for Immigration Law Reform. Washington Post. Retrieved on May 30, 2010: http://www. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/ AR2010072006121.html 13 Field, K. (September 21, 2010). The Dream Act is Dead, at Least for Now. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on August 10, 2011: http://chronicle.com/article/ The-Dream-Act-Is-Dead-at/124560/ 113 Critical Planning Summer 2011
14 Richardson, C. (December 9, 2010). DREAM Act passed by House, but Senate may be tougher. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved August 14, 2010: http://www. csmonitor.com/usa/politics/2010/1209/dream-actpassed-by-house-but-senate-may-be-tougher 15 N.A. (2010). U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes for DREAM Act. United States Senate. Retrieved on May 30, 2010: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/lis/roll_call_lists/roll_ call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00278 16 United We Dream Network: www.unitedwedream.org National Immigrant Youth Alliance: www.theniya.org 17 N.A. (June 9, 2011). State Bills on Access to Education for Immigrants 2011. National Immigration Law Center. Retrieved August 14, 2011: http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/dream/state-education-bills-table-2011.pdf Lead Photograph Nine citizen allies engage in a civil disobedience action with the support of over one hundred immigrant youth on Wilshire Boulevard on May 20, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. Photograph by Carlos Amador. Critical Planning Summer 2011 114