Educating Children: It's a Good Thing!

The basic idea of the DREAM Act, as I understand it, is this. A certain number of people are in this country illegally. A certain number of those people came to be in that situation because of actions their parents took while they were children. And of that sub-set of people who were transported in America illegally, a certain proportion have avoided committing any crimes, and have graduated high school. The DREAM Act would provide "conditional" legal status to anyone who fits those conditions and agrees to do a two-year term in the United States military, get a two-year community college degree, or do two years of work toward a four-year degree. Upon completion of such undertakings, the person in question could apply for American citizenship.

I'm not really sure why anyone would have a problem with this, but Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama has all kinds of problems, including with this:

Already, GOP staffers have begun circulating to senators and conservative groups a white paper outlining what they see as the social and financial costs of passing the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

"In addition to immediately putting an estimated 2.1 million illegal immigrants (including certain criminal aliens) on a path to citizenship, the DREAM Act would give them access to in-state tuition rates at public universities, federal student loans and federal work-study programs," said the research paper, being distributed by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

So we're faced with a teenager who was born from Mexico and illegally transported to the United States several years ago. Said teenager has the capabilities needed to do college-level work and/or to serve in the United States military. One option, the DREAM option, would be to facilitate said Mexican-born teenager's efforts to do those things and recruit him to become an American citizen. The other option, the Sessions option, is to hound this kid and make him go back to Mexico. Because why? Because increasing the education level of our citizenry is bad? The various benefits Sessions is whining about here aren't extended as charity, they're extended because education is socially valuable. Today's student loan recipient is tomorrow's productive taxpayer.

At any rate, it's worth emphasizing that Jeff Sessions is America's most racist Senator and definitely in that context his stance isn't surprising.