Student and community activists are one step closer to seeing their dreams come true after the Illinois Senate passed a bill Wednesday afternoon to establish a scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants.
The Illinois DREAM Act passed the state Senate 45-11 and will go to the state House of Representatives for consideration. The Act would encourage high school counselors to receive training on educational opportunities for immigrant youth, create a private fund to provide scholarships to undocumented students and establish a commission to monitor their needs through college.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn also approved a measure Wednesday that made Illinois the first state to agree to and then withdraw from Secure Communities, a program that obligates law enforcement agencies to share the fingerprints of anyone arrested with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and has led to the deportation of many immigrants convicted of minor offenses or no crimes.
The passage of the act is not the final step, said Stephen Smith, director of organizing for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
“It’s a big step, but it’s only one step. So we can celebrate, but we also have to get back to work quick,” Smith said. “The next stop is the House. We need to make sure that the House passes the DREAM Act with the same huge bipartisan majority that the Senate had.”
State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston), chief co-sponsor of the bill, echoed Smith’s pleasure with the bipartisan majority that supported the DREAM Act and said he found the results both inspiring and reassuring.
“I strongly believe that the DREAM Act illustrates exactly what is great about this country, how it provides opportunity and a chance for children of immigrants to achieve a better future through higher education,” Schoenberg said.
State Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), who filed the bill, said the children of immigrants deserve equality because their parents chose to come to the U.S. State Sen. Tom Johnson (R-Wheaton) made the same statement, pointing out the U.S. is the only home the children of immigrants have, said SESP junior Leah Martinez , who joined about 300 people in Springfield on Wednesday to support the bill.
“It was really exciting,” Martinez said. “They had told us not to applaud because it was against the rules of the chamber, but everyone started applauding anyway after it happened. And it happened so fast, but we were all so excited that it had passed.”
Undocumented high school senior Arianna Salgado, from Proviso Math and Science Academy in Forest Park, Ill., said it was a great experience to hear the support from senators and to witness the vote surrounded by people who had worked hard to see it passed.
“The part that I would remember the most is when they started asking the senators to vote, and looking at the screen and looking at the numbers, and watching the votes in favor beat the votes against, finally seeing 45-11, announcing the Illinois DREAM Act got passed,” Salgado said.
Despite the bill’s passage in the state Senate, there is still a long road ahead, said SESP senior Maria Salazar, a former undocumented student.
“While a lot of students know about this, I know there’s a lot of students who don’t know,” Salazar said. “This is a big piece of the puzzle, but there’s still so much more. Despite the Illinois DREAM Act passing, there’s still undocumented students who want to attend Northwestern but aren’t eligible for financial aid.”
Although today’s results represent a step forward for Illinois that other states are still struggling with, NU students should continue working on similar efforts to better the community, said Bradley Akubuiro, a Medill senior who helped draft the Illinois DREAM Act with 20 other community activists.
“The most exciting part of this for me is knowing that this is not just a class project, that this is not just an extracurricular activity, but this is actually an effort that’s going to be able to help people in tangible ways, not only now but well into the future,” Akubuiro said. “Today, the efforts of Northwestern students, combined with the efforts of our colleagues, have really made a huge impact and this is the kind of thing we need to continue to do.”
