Read Durbin's reasoning-I'm gonna be sick.
Measure Would Offer Legal Status to Illegal Immigrant Students
Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: September 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 — A bill to offer legal status to illegal immigrant students who have graduated from high school was revived this week in the Senate, the first effort to advance a piece of broad immigration legislation that failed in June.
Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who is an author of the student measure, said Wednesday that he would try this week to offer it as an amendment to the military authorization bill under debate in the Senate. The measure would provide a path to permanent legal status for illegal immigrant students who came to the United States before they were 16 years old, graduated from high school in good standing and agreed to serve in the military or attend college for at least two years.
Both supporters and opponents of the measure said it would serve as a test on whether legislation giving legal status to illegal immigrants can pass Congress this year, in light of the strong opposition from conservative voters who defeated the larger bill. Opponents rejected that bill as an amnesty that would reward immigrants who broke the law.
Mr. Durbin, speaking Tuesday on the Senate floor, described his measure as “narrowly tailored” and said it would help resolve “a very serious recruitment crisis” for the military.Supporters, who called the measure the Dream Act, said it could pass the Senate because it is intended to benefit young people who grow up in the United States and are illegal immigrants as a result of decisions by their parents.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/us/20immig.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=washington&adxnnlx=1190294765-d5Y2hQpfRK3FaRVTvozHsg&oref=slogin