A chance to stay is their DREAM: With GOP gaining power, bill's passage endangered

THEIR LIVES ARE hanging in the balance.

Sam, a 20-year-old Community College of Philadelphia student, dreams of going to Temple University, studying political science and advocating for immigrants.

Mark, 27, who has an associate's degree, waits on tables but yearns for so much more - to continue his higher education, then become a professor.

And Maria Marroquin, 23, a well-spoken woman who has become the face of DREAM Act activists in Philly, imagines herself as a lawyer one day.

They all came to the United States with their parents as children. They became Americanized. But they are undocumented.

The DREAM Act - officially, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act - which could come up for a vote in the House this week, could make their futures brighter, allowing them to live fuller, more productive lives.

The act would give people under age 35 the opportunity to earn permanent-resident status if they came to the United States before age 16, have lived here for at least five years, are of good moral character and have completed two years of college or military service.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to bring DREAM up for a stand-alone vote before the year ends, during the lame-duck session.

As the momentum for comprehensive immigration reform stalled this year, reform advocates have looked to the act as a piece of legislation that could gain bipartisan support.

Dave Bennion, a Philadelphia immigration lawyer, said he thinks the chances of the bill passing in the House are "pretty good."

The Senate "is where it gets a little trickier," he said. "Partly because I think the Republicans have been reflexively opposing legislation proposed by Democrats."

If DREAM doesn't pass this year, its prospect of passing next year appears slimmer, given the midterm-election resurgence by Republicans, who captured control of the House and expanded their seats in the Senate.

"I think this is the last window for anything to go through in the foreseeable future," Bennion said of the lame-duck session.

Sam, who asked that his last name not be used, came to the United States from Indonesia with his parents and younger sister when he was 11. His parents had tourist visas, then overstayed them.

His family is ethnically Chinese and Catholic - both of which are minority groups in Indonesia, and which have faced discrimination.

Sam graduated from a Philadelphia public high school. He said that he was accepted to Temple, but when he got the tuition bill, he couldn't afford it.

So he took a year off, working and saving money. He then enrolled in community college, where the tuition is less than half that of Temple's, he said. He has been able to pay his own way with the help of a private scholarship.

If the DREAM Act passes, "I'd go back to Temple immediately," Sam said, adding: "I don't have to live in the shadow anymore. Every time, I'm afraid I would get arrested or someone would knock on my door. I don't want to live in that fear anymore."

Temple spokesman Hillel Hoffmann said that the state-related university does not track whether it has any undocumented students. He noted that federal privacy laws prohibit universities from sharing information about students, other than what could be found in a public directory.

Last month, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported that five undocumented immigrants had enrolled as freshmen at Penn, adding to the number of undocumented students at the private Ivy League school.

According to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, data covering 2006 to 2008 show about 96,000 undocumented immigrants ages 18 to 34 in the United States with at least an associate's degree who would be eligible for permanent legal status if DREAM became law. First they would have to apply for conditional status, and then they could apply for permanent status in six years, during which time they would have to maintain good moral character.

An additional 612,000 unauthorized immigrants, ages 18 to 34, would be eligible for conditional status. Although they have graduated from high school or obtained a GED, they still would have to complete two years of college or military service within a six-year period.

Obtaining permanent legal status would be hard for many potential beneficiaries, who come from poor families and may not have the time to enroll in school but need to work, researchers found. Critics of DREAM contend it is not fair to people who play by the rules. They consider it a type of amnesty.

Mark, another DREAM Act activist, was 6 when his family moved to the U.S. from the Philippines. His father had a doctoral-student visa, then overstayed it.

Mark, who has an associate's degree from California, moved to Philly last year. He would like to continue his studies and become a professor. "Getting accepted isn't the main problem," he said. "It's the funding."

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal financial aid and other forms of aid.

Marroquin, co-founder of the group DreamActivist Pennsylvania, was 13 when her parents brought her and her younger siblings from Peru, then overstayed their tourist visas. She'd like to go to a four-year college, after having obtained an associate's degree. She now earns money "mostly baby-sitting, those kinds of jobs."

"There are a lot of times when I feel that my undocumented status stops me from doing what I want to do in my life," she said, adding that "many students feel the same way I do."