Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Youth urge Senators Udall and Bennet to help pass the DREAM act this Year!

DENVER - MOP, Metro Organizations for People and Padres y Jovenes Unidos will organize three actions, on September 2nd, to highlight the need to pass the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act this year. The DREAM Act would allow undocumented youth to continue their education in pursue of their DREAMS. Hundreds are expected to participate in the three actions that will take place in Denver's Confluence Park.

To kick-off the events, students will gather at Confluence Park at 4pm to take part of DREAM University, where volunteer professors will speak on the importance and history of student organizing. This DREAM University is not the traditional higher education institution. With the spirit of "if they don't let us into institutions of higher learning, we will build our own" students will gather to highlight the harsh barriers that undocumented students face upon graduating high school. They are locked out of financial aid and left out of higher education but not on September 2nd. This will call for the immediate action by congress to pass the DREAM Act this year!

Every year over 65,000 students graduate from US high schools that cannot continue their educational dreams because they lack the proper documentation. Most of these students meet or exceed the requirements necessary to attend college after their senior year, but their immigration status impedes them from pursuing their dreams. The DREAM Act would allow these students under a provisional residency period and put them on a path to citizenship.
Following the DREAM University, at 4:30pm, students will hold a press conference illustrating, through testimonies, the need and urgency to pass the DREAM Act this year as a "down payment" for Comprehensive Immigration Reform next year. Students will also ask Senator Michael Bennet and Senator Mark Udall to help pass the DREAM Act this year by co-writing a letter of support to Senator Majority Leader, Sen. Harry Reid, asking him to move the DREAM Act before the year is over.

At the end of the press conference, students will walk to 16th and Stout to hold a street theater performance, where in, they will show how much more undocumented students can contribute to this county's economy if given the chance to pursue their educational dreams.