Dream Act

As if robocalls didn't have a bad enough reputation in the world of Baltimore media and politics thanks to consultant Julius Henson's activity in the last gubernatorial election, along comes WBFF (Channel 45) Monday night with its own questionable computer-generated calls into hundreds of thousands on Maryland homes. And the calls continued Tuesday. I received one at my home in Baltimore City both days. Racquel Guillory, director of communications for Gov. Martin O'Malley, also received one at home in Howard County Monday night around dinnertime.

As if robocalls didn't have a bad enough reputation in the world of Baltimore media and politics thanks to consultant Julius Henson's activity in the last gubernatorial election, along comes WBFF (Channel 45) Monday night with its own questionable computer-generated calls into hundreds of thousands on Maryland homes. And the calls continued Tuesday. I received one at my home in Baltimore City both days. Racquel Guillory, director of communications for Gov. Martin O'Malley, also received one at home in Howard County Monday night around dinnertime.

President Obama has now met with leaders from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and indicated that he wants the DREAM Act passed before lawmakers adjourn in December. The lame duck Democrats are now going to try to push through amnesty for illegal immigrants — that's what the DREAM Act is all about. They will start with a House vote and then move this unwise legislation to the Senate. Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tentatively scheduled a vote on the DREAM Act for Nov. 29, the Monday Congress returns from Thanksgiving recess.

Most Marylanders who oppose the Dream Act, which grants undocumented immigrants the resident tuition discount on a state college education, probably never met the likes of Onan Marroquin. If they did, they might have a change of heart and mind about the Dream Act. They might come to see it as the fair and smart way for the state to support the bright and highly motivated young people who come through our schools and who, with more education, might join the ranks of the state's innovative and future-thinking professional class.

I am appalled at the trivialization that Dan Rodricks has placed on the issue of the "Dream Act" being about education of international students ("Seeing Dream Act students as 'our own," May 25). The issue he fails to address is the proper spending of our state taxes on legal Maryland residents and the drive to stop the continual misuse of funds by our state legislature and our state executive branch. I am a Maryland resident, but I cannot always say I am a proud Maryland resident because of the continual missteps of our elected officials.

I'm sad the in-state tuition for illegal immigrants issue has taken on a partisan slant ("Carroll, Frederick officials sound off on Dream Act debate," May 28). This is not a Republican or Democrat matter as it impacts every Maryland taxpayer and student, regardless of party affiliation. The petition challenging the Dream Act, which Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law, will provide a sizable discount to students residing in our country illegally. If the citizens of Maryland had been better informed, or had at least been less apathetic, they would also challenge this flawed legislation.

You have to wonder if any of my fellow Marylanders who want to repeal the Dream Act have been to a college campus recently — if not to take classes or hear a lecture, then at least to look around and see who's there. Campuses have plenty of "international students" these days, and more are coming. I'm talkin' nonresident aliens: young people who were born in other countries, raised in other countries and, unless their parents sent them to the United States for prep school, educated in other countries.

When I joined the Howard County police department in 1974, I was the first woman hired to perform routine patrol duties that previously had been performed only by men. I was assigned to work with Sgt. Ed Wessel, who had been around a while and was, let's just say, a traditionalist. It was clear that he and others in the nearly 100-man force were at best uncertain how women would integrate and perform in law enforcement. But Ed Wessel was a professional who worked diligently to give me the same support, encouragement, guidance and respect he had given to every other rookie officer during that era of transition.

We stopped at a supermarket in Baltimore County to buy some apples and peaches, possibly picked by undocumented immigrants employed by an orchard somewhere across the fruited plain. At the entrance to the store, a woman sat at a table offering an anti-Dream Act petition to Friday evening shoppers who appeared eager to sign it. They want to repeal a new Maryland law that would allow in-state college tuition to the undocumented children of undocumented immigrants. Of course, most of those kids, while not citizens, have been through our high schools already.

Most Marylanders who oppose the Dream Act, which grants undocumented immigrants the resident tuition discount on a state college education, probably never met the likes of Onan Marroquin. If they did, they might have a change of heart and mind about the Dream Act. They might come to see it as the fair and smart way for the state to support the bright and highly motivated young people who come through our schools and who, with more education, might join the ranks of the state's innovative and future-thinking professional class.

The state's top court has agreed to decide if Maryland's Dream Act will be on the ballot this fall. The Court of Appeals said this week it will hear CASA de Maryland's appeal of a judge's decision to allow the referendum on the 2010 law. The court scheduled arguments for June 12. The controversial measure was designed to provide college tuition discounts to certain illegal immigrants. Opponents blocked the law from taking effect last year by obtaining enough signatures to bring it to a referendum.

Will Maryland voters see super PAC money spent here to influence the outcome of an election in 2012? If a certain congressional race gets close - say, the general election in the reshaped Sixth District - it's possible, even likely. Only two of the state's eight House seats are Republican. With the new Sixth in danger of slipping to the Democrats, some fat-cat super PAC might decide to throw money into advertising on behalf of the Republican candidate. Vice-versa if the Democrat needs an edge.

We have government by plebiscite in Maryland. Concerning the discussion of referendum(s) on the Dream Act and marriage equality in your Jan. 1 editorial, "The year ahead," readers need to understand that the moment a law is petitioned to referendum, it is effectively vetoed. When the law is petitioned, its opponents have won. The law may not go into effect until after the referendum. So it does not matter who you vote for or what the representatives duly elected by the majority of voters pass or what the elected governor signs; a small minority can kill the bill, at least until the next election can include the referendum, and then the duly passed law can take effect only if it wins a majority in a vote dominated by the passionate few and those propagandized by outside interest groups.

About 200 Maryland conservatives held a daylong conference at a hotel in Annapolis a couple of Saturdays back (sounds like a party, doesn't it?), and the various speakers seemed to agree that the Muslim Brotherhood, illegal immigrants, environmentalists and Democrats are the cause of just about all our problems. "One speaker went so far as to call Prince George's and Montgomery counties and Baltimore city, 'The Axis of Evil,'" according to The Capital's account of the event. The confab was called "Turning The Tides," and, according to The Capital, its organizer was Tonya Tiffany, a Howard County woman affiliated with the Maryland Conservative Action Network.

I'd like to quote Texas Gov. Rick Perry to all those backward thinking demagogues in Maryland, both Democratic and Republican, who promulgated the referendum against the Maryland Dream Act: "If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart. " It is probably the only time in my life where I am going to agree with Governor Perry. But I take my hat off to him to call out these Marylanders (not to mention the other Republican candidates for president down in the polls and motivated by the same demagoguery we see in Maryland)

Efforts to overturn the Maryland Dream Act granting undocumented resident aliens tuition rates at state colleges equal to those charged citizen residents of Maryland would have voters veto a clause of the 14th Amendment: "No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. " The interpretation that the equal protection clause covers everyone, citizen or not, was established in a Supreme Court decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) and reaffirmed in Yamataya v. Fisher (1903)

A new state senator said Tuesday that he plans to introduce legislation to give in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants who have attended state high schools. "After we have invested in their education, it makes sense to treat them equally when it comes to college tuition," said Victor Ramirez, a Prince George's County Democrat. He said colleges should focus on residency requirements rather than immigration status. Annual tuition and mandatory fees at the University of Maryland are $8,416 for state residents and $24,831 for nonresidents, according to the school's website.

For all the remarkable accomplishments of the just-ended lame-duck Congress, one of its most notable disappointments was the defeat of the Dream Act for children of illegal immigrants. The measure would have given a path to citizenship to children who, through no fault of their own, were illegally brought into the country by their parents, provided they later served in the military or attended college. By rights, the act should have been passed in the same spirit of bipartisan cooperation that produced so many other year-end legislative successes.

I'm amazed by the writer who claims that extending in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants will do no good because they can't ever work in Maryland. He needs to read the Maryland Dream Act. One of the conditions of receiving in-state tuition is applying for citizenship. Which is the very thing that the writer complained about, namely illegal immigrants busting in line ahead of those on the pathway to citizenship. You can imagine the fear such people have of immigrants who generally have to learn two languages to survive when one doesn't even demonstrate a reading proficiency in English.

Amid all the clamor and misinformation regarding the Maryland Dream Act, there has been little real debate about the merits of the law, which was designed to help the children of undocumented workers attend college. The people this bill helps were brought into America as minors; they've spent much if not most of their life in this country and in our state. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that children have little control over the consequences of being brought into this country illegally, and should not be denied the rights afforded other children.