The Dream Act and Colin Powell's immigration bomb

A recap of the latest news on The Dream Act. Legislators will debate the merits of adding the controversial measure to the defense bill this week. The Dream Act would give some illegal immigrant students a chance to become citizens if they complete two years of college or military service.

Colin Powell drops immigration bomb
Associated Press
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell says illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. and he has firsthand knowledge of that -- because they fix his house.

Dream Act has little chance this time around…
Los Angeles Times
The chances that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can deliver on his promise to move the so-called DREAM Act toward passage in the Senate this week range from slim to none. But the announcement that it would be added as an amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill has energized pro-immigrant groups, even as it underlines the fact that there'll be no comprehensive immigration reform any time in the near future. Not this year, certainly, and probably not next year either.

Editorial supports Dream Act
Chicago Tribune
Every year, 65,000 youngsters who are here illegally graduate from high school to an uncertain future. They don't qualify for most scholarships, student loans or resident tuition rates; they also can't legally work here. Those who can afford tuition hesitate to apply for fear of being deported. With no ties to any other country, most end up staying and working underground. U.S. taxpayers, meanwhile, are deprived of the talent and legal labor of hundreds of thousands of young men and women they paid to school.

If we can't amend, enforce:
Los Angeles Times
It would be nice to get rid of the anachronism of birthright citizenship, but that may be practically impossible. So here's an alternative idea: How about enforcing the immigration laws we've got? ...The worst offender, however, has been the Obama administration, which seems to be doing everything in its power to ensure that those numbers continue to rise. It has pushed for amnesty, refused requests to beef up border enforcement, made it difficult to detain illegal immigrants pending deportation proceedings, and waged an all-out courtroom war against legal efforts to slow illegal immigration in Arizona.

Poll results show most in state want illegals barred from public colleges
Athens Banner-Herald
Two-thirds of Georgians want to bar illegal immigrants from attending the University of Georgia and other public colleges, even if they pay out-of-state tuition, according to results from a recent poll. Sixty-seven percent of people polled last week by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Georgia Newspaper Partnership favor a law requiring proof of legal residency to attend a Georgia college or university, while 22 percent opposed such a law and 11 percent were undecided.

Low poll numbers for Obama on hot topic
Orange County Register (California)
Most U.S. voters disapprove of President Barack Obama's handling of illegal immigration, according to a recent national poll by Quinnipiac University. The poll showed that 60 percent of respondents disapproved of his handling of illegal immigration, while 25 percent approved and the rest didn't know.

Photo: Immigration activists held a rally in May on the campus of the University of Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune / September 20, 2010)