Immigrant Students Wait for Dream Act Passage

MYFOXNY.COM - When Sonia was 5 years old, her family moved to Harlem from Ecuador.

"My parents came here with the idea of achieving that American dream and giving that piece of dream to their children," says Sonia, an undocumented immigrant.

In 2007 she graduated in the top 5 of her class at Frederick Douglass Academy and is now a double major at Hunter College. She wonders if that promised dream of Americana will ever be hers.

She is hoping that congress will eventually pass the Dream Act -- legislation that would speed up the path of citizenship for certain undocumented students in the United States.

To qualify, an undocumented student would have to:

• Have arrived in the U.S. before the age of 16
• Maintained residence here for at least 5 consecutive years
• Graduated from an American high school or received a GED
• Be of "good moral character," i.e., no brushes with the law

Antonio Meloni is the executive director of immigration advocacy services in Astoria, Queens. Meloni, an Italian American, feels the dream act is a solid start to some type of immigration reform.

"As far as federal laws are concerned it's one of the better pieces," he says. "It's specific, to the point. It's helping people that are in a situation that they did not cause themselves. Students that came at very young age, had no idea that they were legal or illegal and probably haven't been told this until probably later on in life when it made a difference."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called for congress to move on the dream act. But in the years since its inception, the bill has failed to gain substantial bipartisan support in both chambers on Capitol Hill.

Critics of the dream act say that it's unfair financially to families without undocumented children who want to go to college.

Just last month on Fox News, Steven Camarota with the Center of Immigration Studies came out against the Dream Act.

The 65,000 who graduate from U.S. high schools each year, as Sonia did, unable to truly join the great American melting pot for one reason:

"Those 9 magic numbers, those 9 social security numbers, you can't achieve your goals," Sonia says. "And you're stuck in a moment where you want to give back to the place that you love, America, and you want to continue, but unfortunately there's a stop to it because of your status in this country."