DREAM Act is a nightmare

With immigration back in the news, proponents of the DREAM Act are again peddling arguments for a massive amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

The DREAM Act represents a dual assault on law-abiding, taxpaying American citizens and legal immigrants.

First, the DREAM Act allows public universities to grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates.  So it tells parents who have sent their children to out of state colleges that they will have to pay higher tuition bills than illegal immigrants.

The DREAM Act also will result in illegal immigrants taking more of the limited number of spaces available for students at public universities, crowding out deserving American students.

Second, the DREAM Act will grant amnesty to illegal immigrants no matter how old they are now as long as they claim to have come to the U.S. before age 16, been here for five years and graduated from high school.

As we witnessed in the aftermath of the 1986 amnesty, thousands of illegal immigrants will resort to fraud to gain citizenship.  The DREAM Act does nothing to prevent this from happening again.

And illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. before they were 16 years old and have lived here for at least five years can gain legal residence and ultimately citizenship simply by graduating high school, and going to two years of college or the military.  But even those requirements can be waived if their application would cause "hardship".

Once the DREAM Act's recipients become citizens and turn 21, they can sponsor their illegal immigrant parents for green cards.  The true size of the amnesty could number in the millions.

Citizenship is the greatest honor our country can bestow and should not be given away lightly.  Amnesty - through the DREAM Act or otherwise - is an affront to citizens and legal immigrants who have played by the rules.

The DREAM Act is a nightmare for the American people.

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