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DREAM Act Students Journey to DC for Inaugural Class of DREAM University

Posted July 16, 2010 by Marisa Treviño
Categories: Federal Immigration Policy

LatinaLista.net—Washington DC is home to some of the country’s finest universities—Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, Howard—and it is also home to a new one christened DREAM University.

DREAM University (DU) is for those students otherwise known as DREAM Act students—students either denied seeking a college degree or unable to work after graduating because of their non-citizenship status.

DREAM University is only open from July 19-21 and its curriculum is unlike any regular college curriculum. At DU, students get hands-on training and practice in how to lobby their congressional representatives to pass the DREAM Act, lessons on how to speak to the media and tell their individual stories.

They’ll also get some training on how to create multimedia content, have a mock cap-and-gown graduation and end the three days with a march and rally around the Capitol.

So far, students from over 16 states will make the journey to DC. With many of them feeling it’s now or never for Congress to pass the DREAM Act, some plan on hunkering down in DC after DREAM University closes to let Representatives and Senators know that they’re not going anywhere and that they have high hopes pinned on what the nation’s leaders will do before they leave for their summer recess.

Their hopes are that the DREAM Act passes as a stand-alone bill and that the next university they enroll in will have offer classes where the tests are far simpler than trying to change minds in Congress.