Pass the DREAM Act This Year!

Pass the DREAM Act This Year!

Greetings

Our Saint Rita of Cascia Parish along with The Office for Immigrant Affairs and Immigration Education of the Archidiocese of Chicago, Illinois is focusing our prayer and
fasting on Pope Benedict’s teaching in “Migration and the New Evangelization.” We should be mindful that the baby child Jesus was a refugee who, along with the Holy Family, fled the terror of Herod into Egypt (Mt. 2:14‐15). In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus instructs us to welcome the stranger: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt. 25‐35). We are writing to you to express the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) that will help those young individuals that have demonstrated a commitment to hard work and a strong desire to be contributing members of our society.

The DREAM Act is a bipartisan proposal, which would create a pathway to citizenship for thousands of young students who were brought to the United States years ago as children. These children have grown up in our communities and include honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, homecoming queens, and aspiring teachers, doctors, and U.S. soldiers.

Even though they were brought to the U.S. years ago as children, they face unique barriers to higher education, are unable to work legally in the U.S., and often live in constant fear of detection by immigration authorities. Our immigration law currently has no mechanism to consider the special equities and circumstances of such students. The DREAM Act would eliminate this flaw.

By enacting the DREAM Act, congress would legally recognize what is de facto true: these young people belong here. If congress fails to act this year, another entire class of outstanding, law-abiding high school students will graduate without being able to plan for the future, and some will be removed from their homes to countries the barely know. This tragedy will cause America to lose a vital asset: an educated class promising immigrant students who have demonstrated a commitment to hard work and a strong desire to be contributing members of our society.

A more educated workforce, which contributes to our tax base, is precisely the economic stimulus we need in these hard times. I urge you to support the DREAM Act and to help these young students.

Our Saint Rita of Cascia Parish will continue to pray and fast for all of you, members of Congress, State Legislators and The President Barack Obama to come to a more compassionate understanding of immigration issues.

Respectfully yours,

The Parishioners of St. Rita of Cascia Church-Chicago, Il