Fact check...

I ran into this article that reviews the facts about the Dream Act for those of you who are still a little confused about what it entails. I chose to present the following four popular arguments about the dream act...

1. ARGUMENT: The DREAM Act would cause undocumented students to take college seats away from "American" citizens.
REBUTTAL: Currently, this is the most popular argument against The DREAM Act, so its rebuttal is split up into four sections.

First, except for top tier universities there is no such thing as "limited seating." Community colleges and universities accept as many qualified applicants as they can in order to increase tuition revenues and, if public, state allocation of funds.

Second, The DREAM Act has a military provision that would allow students to apply for permanent residency if they completed two years of military service meaning not all undocumented students will be attending college.

Third, many DREAMers have already graduated from college or university. This means that there are thousands of highly qualified, college educated individuals in a wide variety of fields that cannot put their degrees to use because of their legal status.

Fourth, these students have grown up in American culture, taken the same standardized tests, met the same criteria and taken the same rigorous courses as "American Citizens." If they qualify for college or university it is because they have earned it. They are just as American and patriotic as citizens with papers and have a right to a higher education.

2. ARGUMENT: Why don’t they just go back to their own country?
REBUTTAL: DREAMers are unique. First, DREAMers come from all over the world including Mexico, South America, Asia and some from Europe, but the US is their home. Second, DREAMers have grown up in the US and have little to no knowledge of their home country—some don’t even have or know of family members there. Sending DREAMers home is like sending a citizen child to another country where he or she knows no one and has nowhere to go.

3. ARGUMENT: Why don’t they just apply for citizenship?
REBUTTAL: As most DREAMers were brought without proper documentation, they have virtually no legal method of legalization. They cannot apply or take a test for citizenship. There is no existing legal process for undocumented youth to apply for citizenship. The DREAM Act will be that path of legalization for children to apply for legal residency.

4. ARGUMENT: Why help undocumented immigrant students and not documented ones?
REBUTTAL: The DREAM Act does not provide more benefits to DREAMers than to documented immigrant students. The Act only puts them on the same plane and students will have to work just as hard as everyone else.

There you have it.... you can find the whole list of arguments on their facebook page, "I bet we can find 1,000,000 People Who Support the Dream Act!!!, here.