{"id":2985,"date":"2010-12-08T14:59:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T19:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/?p=2985"},"modified":"2010-12-08T16:01:52","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T21:01:52","slug":"gop-outraged-over-criminals-dreaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/12\/gop-outraged-over-criminals-dreaming.html","title":{"rendered":"GOP outraged over criminals DREAMing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DREAMing<\/a>
DREAMing Students (by Korean Resource Center on Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Republicans launched another salvo<\/a> against the DREAM Act today by emphasizing that it would provide a path to citizenship for immigrants with criminal records.\u00a0 There is truth to the claim, but the emphasis and outrage is overblown.<\/p>\n

DREAM would allow those with up to 2 misdemeanor convictions which didn’t together total more than a 90 day sentence to still qualify.\u00a0 However, that requirement needs to be understood in the larger context of how misdemeanor crimes are held against the rest of us.\u00a0 It’s worth noting that such a criminal record might keep you out of certain security related jobs, but wouldn’t disqualify you from being in the military, and otherwise is considered a pretty minor smudge on your record.\u00a0 Anyone with a felony record or even a series of minor crimes would not be eligible.<\/p>\n

Further, applicants would be required<\/a> to be admissible under Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.\u00a0 This means they can be disqualified for any number of reasons including being on public assistance, illegal voting, visa or marriage fraud, or being deemed a criminal or security threat.\u00a0 In addition, they must pass tests in civics and English and have all their taxes paid up.\u00a0 There are certainly ample restrictions to assure the U.S. doesn’t admit undesirables or deadbeats under the proposed program.<\/p>\n

As a side benefit, even applying for DREAM brings undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and on to the books.\u00a0 Those that don’t qualify or don’t fulfill their obligation will be able to be deported or otherwise dealt with as they will now at least be registered with the INS.\u00a0 Today we don’t even know these people exist.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, what the DREAM Act does do is provide a way for people who have essentially grown up here and feel American to actually become American.\u00a0 It forces them to prove their worthiness by serving in the military or completing a 2-year college education, thus making it unlikely these people will be a burden on our society.\u00a0 Rather, it makes it more likely that immigrants qualifying for citizenship under DREAM will be self-sufficient and productive member of society.\u00a0 And we can use all of them we can get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans railed against the DREAM Act today claiming it would provide citizenship for criminals. Yeah, sorta…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,40,75,41],"class_list":["post-2985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-dream-act","tag-gop","tag-immigration","tag-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2985"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2999,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2985\/revisions\/2999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}