On Oct. 13 the California Development,
Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act was vetoed. The hopes of thousands of
high school students have been squashed — terminated — under the foot of Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the failure to pass the D.R.E.A.M. Act goes beyond
one person’s narrow decision. It is one of many consequences of our society’s
lack of encouragement for critical analysis of the law, its prevalent, evolving
racism and narrow views of complex social issues.

This year, students joined together to demand a groundbreaking change that
would finally allow undocumented students to feel equal to their peers, not
alienated. By demanding the passage of the California D.R.E.A.M. Act, students
were asking for a helping hand. They were asking simply for the possibility of
hope. The hope that educators, peers the government and the general public
could come to recognize and value their academic achievements, and finally give
them a chance.

Undocumented students face barriers and difficulties
the rest of us cannot even imagine. Despite these challenges, many have still
found a way to succeed academically. By making financial aid available,
the D.R.E.A.M. Act would have made
college a feasible option for these students. Furthermore, it would have done
so at little or no cost to California taxpayers. In his op-ed article to the Los Angeles Times, state Sen. Gil
Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) explained the D.R.E.A.M. Act only pertains to
noncompetitive grants, so there would be no chance of services being diverted
from citizens to noncitizens. In fact, the resource pool under discussion in
the D.R.E.A.M. Act is under-utilized. Cedillo wrote on May 19 that “during the
past two academic years, only 64 percent of allocated grants were awarded. Many
students are not aware of the statute on Entitlement grants, and allotted funds
go unclaimed.” Essentially, a large
sum of money is wasted each year. It is irrational that we would prefer to keep
this money locked up, rather than make it available for all deserving students.

During the D.R.E.A.M. Act campaign at UCSD,
many students were asked the question: “Do you think students have a right to
pursue their dreams of higher education?” There was not one student that
answered “no” to the question. But when we would explain to our fellow students
that the ones pursuing the dream were unauthorized immigrants, their
expressions and even their answers would often change.

What is it that makes undocumented
immigrants subhuman? What is it that makes these specific students less than
anyone else in this country? “They are criminals, they broke the law, they do
not deserve to be rewarded for it,” is the commonly heard core of much
anti-immigrant rhetoric. It is surprising how fearful of and devoted to the law
people become when talking about illegal immigration.

All of a sudden, people seem to forget that
the law is not the almighty ruler of society but that society is the creator of
the law. People seem to forget that for many years it was once illegal for women
to vote. People seem to forget that it was illegal for a Chinese immigrant to
become a U.S. citizen because they were believed to be “inferior.” Unquestioned
commitment to immoral laws has, for centuries, plagued our republic. This
commitment to immoral laws is merely an evolution, a translation of the hate and
racism that has stained our country for centuries. If it is not the blacks,
it’s the immigrants or the gays or the women. There always seems to be a
scapegoat on whom society blames its problems.

This
unquestioned commitment to the law allows immoral laws to prevail, and creates
a pathway through which the cancers of hate and inhumanity can metastasize.
Anti-immigration politicians can’t deny higher education to undocumented
immigrants, because that would categorize them as racists and nobody likes to
be called a racist. So, what can they do to block illegal students from
institutions of higher education. It’s as if the politicians use the following
reasoning: “Since unauthorized immigrants don’t have money and school is
expensive, let’s deny them financial aid! It solves all of our problems … No
one gets to call us racist and education remains unattainable.”

Finally, the immigration issue is a complex
one. Immigrants do not really want to risk their lives at the United
States-Mexico border, be oppressed or be
treated with disrespect. Immigrants do not really want to be invisible. What
are the incredibly strong forces that impel people to migrate? Millions of
people in Latin American countries lie in conditions of dire poverty, due in
large part to U.S. economic policies such as the Farm Bill. Illegal immigrants
don’t risk their lives to come to the United States because they are criminals;
they come to the United States so that they can feed their families.

As a society we must think
about the social issues critically before we can spit out solutions. Denying
social services to immigrants is not a solution; it is only inhumane. Denying social
services creates subhuman demographics within society and it propagates hate.
The bigger person can pick on the littler one and the little one can always
pick on the subhuman — in this case the illegal immigrant. Even if the
D.R.E.A.M. Act were a financial burden for taxpayers, it would still be
unacceptable to think that education or any social benefit should be denied to
a person on the basis of their immigration status. Society must start to think
critically about the way it allows government to enact legislation. Citizens
must start to be critical, and this means evaluating our laws on the basis of
their moral merits. In the mean time, undocumented students and oppressed
people all over the world will still dream, still fight and still continue to
learn. The path is as easy or as hard as when they started and they will not
turn back.

Bakal and Lima are active members of UCSD Student/Migrant Rights
Awareness, and Young serves as A.S. vice president of external affairs.