Issue Brief

Access to Higher Education for Undocumented Students - USA

Scope of the Problem  factual statements on the extent of the problem in the past, current, or future

• Background
• Currently, there are 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.  Each year, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools.  Through no fault of their own, they face unique barriers in their academic, personal, and professional lives.  
• Make free K-12 education a successful investment
•  Every year, 65,000 young people that were born abroad but whose parents brought them to the United States graduate from American high school, as a result of a Supreme Court decision which stated that all undocumented “children” should have the right to free K-12 education. Therefore, in order for the country to make its investment in these people's education a successful one, it needs to allow them to receive more training and education and, thus, enable them to move to better jobs. This will eventually translate into more taxes paid and more resources for contributing to the US economy, which will make it a succesful investment.
•  Filling job needs
• Given that the rate of labor-force growth has been declining during the last two decades as fewer native-born workers become available to join the work force with every birth cohort and the impending retirement of the baby boomer generation, the economy will need the immigrant share of the nation’s labor force to increase both in numbers and quality in order to maintain labor market stability.
•  Alleviate the recruitment shortages to the armed forces

•  Every year, 7,200 of the 180,000 new recruits are non-citizens. Immigrants account for 20 percent of recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.   

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Past Policy & Program Milestones  key legislation and milestones including significant policy and funding shifts, major studies, etc.

Current Policy & Programs  summary of current policies in the form of legislation, programs, and funding

• The DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) - Introduced but never passed repeatedly since being introduced in the 107th Congress (2001) as H.R.1918 and S. 1291 in the House and Senate respectively.

• It has been introduced in both the Senate and the House for several times. (Senate: S. 1545 - 108th Congress; S. 2075 - 109th Congress; S. 774 - 110th Congress; S. 2205 - 110th Congress; House: H.R. 1684 - 108th Congress; H.R. 5131 - 109th Congress; H.R. 1275 - 110th Congress).

• The text of the bill was also included in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 and 2007 - however, both these bills failed to get passed.

• On October 18, Richard Durbin, along with Republican co-sponsors Sen. Charles Hagel and Sen. Richard Lugar, introduced the DREAM Act as S.2205. However, the Senate rejected any attempt to start debate on the topic on October 24th.

• The DREAM Act was re-introduced in both chambers of Congress on Thursday, March 26, 2009. Introducing the bill were Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Harry Reid (D-NV), Mel Martinez (R-FL), Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Russel D. Feingold (D-WI) and U.S. Representative Howard Berman (D-CA). 

Key Organizations contacts for public and private organizations

• Government
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• Judicial Branch 
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• Non-Profit
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Bibliography   web sites, reports, articles, and other reference material

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