December 8, 2010

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hold a Wednesday vote on the controversial DREAM Act amnesty bill, and to make matters worse, late last night, the House of Representatives also scheduled a last-minute Wednesday vote on a brand new version of the DREAM Act. This will be the sixth version (yes, six!) of the DREAM amnesty that has been introduced.  Your calls into both Senate and House offices will be critically important all day in the hours leading up to the votes!

If passed and signed into law, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would legalize approximately 2.1 million illegal aliens under the age of 30 or 35, depending on which version of the bill is considered. The amnesty provides no enforcement provisions and no end date or cap thereby encouraging future illegal immigration. It also provides no English language requirement. The sixth version of the DREAM Act amnesty, similar to the previous five versions of the bill contains largely cosmetic changes that do little to reduce the size, scope, and cost of the proposed amnesty.

TAKE ACTION!

As you know, the United States is experiencing a record wave of non-English speaking immigration. There are an estimated 12 million illegal aliens currently residing in the U.S. today.

ProEnglish opposes any amnesty, such as the DREAM Act, that does not require specific steps for amnestied persons to first become English proficient. Removing incentives for immigrants and native-born non-English speakers to learn English and instead increasing taxpayer-funded, government-mandated multilingual services for the over-300 languages currently spoken in the U.S. is bad public policy.

Amnesty legislation, such as the DREAM Act, without specific steps to learn and test fluent in English:

• Imposes a heavy financial burden. Granting amnesty will dramatically increase the already-costly demands for multilingual services, including multilingual voting ballots, driver's license tests, translations for official documents, forms, and school textbooks, and government-mandated interpreters for court hearings and government-funded health care programs. The burden should not fall on American citizens to pay for immigrants to avoid learning English.

As Rep. Steve King (R-IA) explains in his recent op-ed, "CBO found that deficit spending on welfare programs would increase by at least $5 billion, and possibly much more, after 2020 as a result of granting DREAM Act amnesty."

• Fosters linguistic isolation. Amnesties that lack specific language-learning requirements and a test weaken a critically needed cohesion for a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Millions of English Learners have participated in public elementary and secondary education in the U.S. without acquiring proficiency in English. 59% of U.S. elementary school children who are English Learners were born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.

• Cripples upward mobility of non-English-speaking and LEP immigrants. All immigrants should understand that learning English is essential to their hope of pursuing the American dream and that learning English enables them to improve their skills and earning power. Just like earlier immigrants, they have a responsibility to learn our nation's language and assimilate. Lacking fluency in English traps amnesty recipients in low-skilled, low-wage jobs and keeps them heavily reliant on taxpayer-funded government programs.

TAKE ACTION!

SENATE

The Senate vote will occur on Wednesday, December 8th, so please call and email your two Senators today and tell them to vote NO on cloture on the motion to proceed to debate of the DREAM Act amnesty today!

View the list of target Senators

HOUSE

The House has placed Rep. Berman's (D-CA) newest version of the DREAM Act on its legislative schedule for Wednesday.  Your representative needs to hear from you – urge him/her to oppose the DREAM Act!

View the list of target Representatives

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

The DREAM Act is an Amnesty bill that America cannot afford

ProEnglish resources:

Amnesty: A Government Mandate for Taxpayer-funded Multilingual Services

English & Immigration

Read all of last week's legislative action alerts on the DREAM Act

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