Act is not amnesty. It is a narrowly tailored piece of legislation that would help only a limited. select group of young people earn legal status. This is not an incentive for more illegal immigrants to enter our country. To be eligible for legal status under the DREAM Act. you must have good moral character. have graduated from an American high school. entered the country under the age of 15. and have been in the United States for at least 5 years. There is an end date to the DREAM Act. The current system punishes children for the mistakes of their parents. The DREAM Act will provide a legal path for undocumented students to pursue the American dream based on their own accomplishments and hard work. Immigration is a very complicated and difficult issue. for many reasons. Partly because we have deferred this issue for years. We have refused to take a responsible position on all the different aspects of immigration reformincluding the DREAM Act. Obviously border security is the core. the beginning of immigration reform. I am not aware of any Senator who has questioned or contested that point. In July. the Senate approved $3 billion in funding for border security and immigration enforcemen ttotaling $40.6 billion in overall funding for homeland security. From fiscal year 1993 to fiscal year 2006. the budget for the Border Patrol has tripled from $362 million to $1.6 billion. That is not the debate. The debate. of course. resides around the difficult issues. the 11 to 12 million illegals now in this country.
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Border Patrol undocumented illegal immigrants border security immigration Immigration