Jiovanni, an 18-year-old Salt Lake man, just graduated with stellar grades from West High School. He wants to join the U.S. Marine Corps and then go to college. His family can't afford to fund his education.
But in this, the summer when his life might be stretching out before him, Jiovanni has little to look forward to. He can't go into the service, can't plan any kind of career in the United States. Jiovanni came into this country illegally, a 2-month-old traveling across Mexico's border with his parents.
But Leonor Perretta, a Salt Lake immigration attorney, said U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, may change the outlook for such undocumented immigrants.
It's called the DREAM Act: The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, first proposed by Hatch in 2001. After Sept. 11 of that year, such immigration policy reforms were pushed out of the lawmaking picture. But now Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, plans to reintroduce the bill. The DREAM Act could not only allow undocumented immigrants to pay resident tuition at colleges across the United States, but also adjust their residency status to permit them to work in this country.
Perretta said she sees numerous cases like Jiovanni's. Immigrant parents bring their very young children into the United States; those children then find that they have no options.
"They're here through no fault of their own," she said. "Some kids don't even know they're here illegally. If you've been here since you were 2 months old, it's hard to think of yourself as anything but an American."
Many are finding out, as they turn 17 or 18, that their opportunities for college and careers are slim to none. Perretta said she also knows of a young Brazilian man whose parents brought him into Utah when he was a small child; they obtained legal residency status for themselves but couldn't do so for their son. He's now serving an LDS mission; when he returns to Utah, he still won't have a green card and won't be able to work here legally.
In Utah, undocumented immigrants can already attend institutions such as the University of Utah while paying in-state fees, thanks to HB144's passage in 2001. Resident tuition is about $2,900, compared with $8,828 per year for nonresidents.
But for many would-be college students like Jiovanni, even the lower in-state fees make college impossible. The DREAM Act, Perretta explained, would provide high school graduates with legal-resident status, aka green cards.
"If he could work, he could help his parents, and he could work his way through college," she said.
Sharon Garn, the Hatch staffer who works on immigration issues, said the in-state tuition portion of the DREAM Act is likely to remain as it was originally drafted. But the status-adjustment language in the bill may not.
"We're looking at that very carefully," Garn said. "We want to make sure it's palatable."
During a meeting with Garn, Andrew Parker, an advocate for international students, expressed concern that the proposal to legalize certain undocumented immigrants may stall the DREAM Act. He suggested separating the two halves of the bill, to pass at least the in-state tuition portion sooner rather than later.
Perretta and other immigration lawyers and advocates called that idea counterproductive.
"What's the point of getting a Ph.D. if you can't work?" asked Perretta.
Janet Alcala of the Human Rights Education Center in Salt Lake City added that since many young people were brought into the United States as infants or toddlers, "This is their country. They want to work here."
Garn assured the group that Hatch and his staff are looking at the bill as "an entire package," adding that their goal is to reintroduce the DREAM Act before Congress' August recess.
Sen. Pete Domenici, D-N.M., is among the DREAM Act's supporters in Congress. But groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform have called it unfair to U.S. citizens. "Now we have a prominent member of Congress trying to jam through legislation that will give illegal aliens the same chance at these seats (in colleges) as citizens who play by the rules," wrote the federation's director, Dan Stein.
Perretta emphasized that the DREAM Act wouldn't throw a blanket amnesty over such students. "It's an earned benefit" that would be afforded only those who have graduated from high school and kept a clean record while living in this country for at least five years.
"This isn't going to help the juvenile delinquents, or the ones who flunked out of high school," she said.
Adjusting students' residency status and permitting them to work here, she added, "means the difference between an educated, productive member of society and a wasted life."
E-mail: durbani@desnews.com