Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Still DREAMing

A quick update on Marie Gonzalez, the undocumented immigrant from Jefferson City, Missouri featured in a Washington Post article last week (blogged about at Eduwonk and on this site also). Marie, a honors student in high school, was facing deportation (the orders were for today, July 5) along with her parents. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Marie was granted a stay of deportation for one year on July 1st. Great news! Unfortunately, her parents are still scheduled to be deported, although MO Senator Jim Talent is apparently on the case.

The Post story, and some well-timed protests in NYC, LA and Jeff City, seem to have generated a lot of attention about Marie's situation in particular and on the 65,000 undocumented immigrants that could be helped by the DREAM Act, which potentially could put young immigrants like Marie on a path towards citizenship (and allow them to attend college). Still no word on when the Bush administration will begin supporting sensible immigration reforms that would help families like Marie's.

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