I first met Diego in the spring of 2010, the day before his high school prom. He had much to celebrate: he was the first of his family to graduate from high school and the valedictorian of his class; he was accepted at Cornell University.
But instead of daydreaming about his future, all Diego wanted to talk about were immediate details, like where to find a magenta tuxedo vest to match his prom date's gown. Diego has a strong competitive streak and had spent much of the past year obsessed by the college admissions process. He described his prom date to me, as he did all of his friends and classmates, by her first name and the college she would be attending in the fall (Johns Hopkins).
Many of Diego's classmates had, as he phrased it, "boats and tutors and stuff" which made his valedictorian status that much more sweet, but none of his victories seemed to matter now – soon, he would be just another undocumented kid waiting for the Dream Act, a bill that's been circulating through Congress for more than a decade.
Diego is thin with heavily gelled hair and a broad smile. He was seven when he moved from Mexico City to Norwalk, Connecticut – he has a faint memory of a multi-day journey across the Sonoran desert, sleeping in ditches and in the rear of an airless truck.
As an undocumented immigrant, Diego is ineligible for federal financial aid or student loans, which means that Cornell would be impossibly expensive. Until recently, undocumented students in Connecticut did not qualify for in-state tuition rates, meaning it would cost Diego $25,138 annually to attend the University of Connecticut at Stamford, while his high school classmates paid only $8,654 a year. And even if he could scrape the tuition money together, what good is a degree if he's not eligible for legal employment after he graduates?
The Dream – or the Development, Relief, and Education of Minors – Act would offer a path to legalisation for young immigrants who arrived in the US before the age of 16. Since it was first introduced to Congress, the Dream Act has become progressively more stringent. To qualify for a predecessor of the bill, known as the Student Adjustment Act of 2001, one had to complete the sixth grade.
As of 2010, the Dream Act requires graduating from high school and then completing at least two years of a four-year university course or two years of military service and it would not provide undocumented students with access to in-state tuition at public universities or federal financial aid.
There are approximately two million people living in the US who fit the bill's demographic criteria. They call themselves "Dreamers", their tone more wistful than hopeful. According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are about 96,000 people who have met the educational requirements to benefit immediately from the Dream Act and an additional 712,000 would qualify eventually, based on graduation rates, financial means and other factors.
The Dream Act used to have a steady core of Republican supporters; after all, it was Ronald Reagan who decided in 1986 to enforce the borders, but legalise the immigrants who were already here. But recently, even though the bill is more conservative and illegal immigration has dropped to a 40-year low, Republican support for the Dream Act has waned. John McCain, who co-sponsored the Dream Act in 2005, 2006, and 2007, voted against it in 2010. In 2008, Republican representative Chris Cannon of Utah, one of the earliest supporters of the bill, lost his bid for a seventh term, largely because of his voting history on immigration.
Several of the Republican presidential candidates have equivocated on the Dream Act. As governor, Rick Perry passed a law in 2001 making Texas the first of 11 states in the country that allowed undocumented students to attend public college at in-state rates; but that, he argued, had nothing to do with the federal Dream Act, which he adamantly opposed. Mitt Romney of 2006 said: "Those that are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process toward application for citizenship." Romney of 2011 promised to veto the Dream Act in any form.
Dream Act rallies have taken on a tone of desperation. The newest version of the Dream Act requires that one be younger than 30 to qualify, which has increased the sense of urgency among the bill's original activists. Dream Act Action Week, which took place in mid-February, included several events that paid tribute to Dreamers who have committed or attempted suicide.
Two years on, Diego's mother Graciela, who works as a house cleaner and babysitter, has watched the video of her son's graduation address so many times that she's come to memorise it. "I watch it every time I feel sad," Graciela said.
Diego is taking classes at Norwalk Community College and preparing his transfer student application to a few US schools as well as schools abroad. The top universities in Canada are far more affordable than those in the US and once there, he would have a straightforward way of applying for legal residency and citizenship.
Attending college in Canada would require an irrevocable goodbye to his life in Connecticut, where he lives with his parents and two sisters, Estefania and Samantha, who are 15 and 10, respectively. Samantha is the only member of the family who was born in the States, a fact Graciela brings up, it seems, almost every night at dinner. "You're the citizen, you have to make all the money," Graciela likes to say, half-teasing. Still, Diego thinks that going to college abroad may be worth it.
"This period of waiting is too much for me," he says. He's almost 20 and he's never travelled with friends, flown on an airplane or driven a car. He has prematurely outgrown his teenage ego. "The managers at the restaurant seemed impressed that I was valedictorian," he said after a job interview at a Mexican restaurant. He worked there briefly until the manager asked for his papers.
"It's always the [social security] number", Diego says. He spent much of the fall listening to recorded lectures by MIT professors in the local public library. "I just don't feel like I'm doing my potential."
