Those certificates are dated to the day of death and reflect the fact that not all of the men and women fighting for America are citizens of the United States.  In fact, almost 36,000 members of the U.S. military are not citizens. One proposed piece of legislation would make military service attractive to another group of immigrants: children who were brought to the United States illegally.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was first proposed in 2001 as a way to give children who were brought to the United States illegally a path to citizenship.

Almost 36,000 members of the United States military are not citizens of the nation. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army's Soliders Media Center

The American dream?

Under the DREAM Act, children who arrived in the United States more than five years ago, are fifteen years of age or younger and able to demonstrate good moral character would receive legal status for six years once they graduated from high school.  During this conditional period, the immigrant would then have to graduate from a two-year college, complete two years towards a four-year degree or serve for two years in the United States military.

The DREAM Act has garnered widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans, including Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.  In 2005 and 2007 all three senators co-sponsored the DREAM Act but there are also many that oppose the proposed legislation.

“It is a pretty emotional issue,” says Dan Kesselbrenner, a lawyer with the National Immigration Project, an advocacy group that promotes immigrants rights.  “It combines two issues.  One is military service and the other is status.”

Kesselbrenner says while the government should be looking for ways to help minors brought to the United States illegally, military service is the wrong solution.

“They’re going after a vulnerable population,” he says, “people of low income, people of colour.”

Kesselbrenner says military recruiters know that it is difficult for students without some form of legal status in the United States to get financial aid for higher education.  Without that assistance, it is very difficult for most to pay for college and get a job.

“The balance is tipped,” he says, “because the ability to get permanent status is held out to immigrants as an incentive by recruiters.” 

Kesselbrenner says it is unfortunate that the military takes advantage of immigrants.  He says most immigrants base their decision to join the United States military on the benefits and do not properly weigh the risks involved.

“It’s striking that the politicians who make these laws, their children don’t serve,” says Kesselbrenner.  “People of low income shouldn’t be forced to take that dangerous an option as their only option.  I would prefer to see other job training programs.”

Opening the doors for amnesty

Bryan Griffith from the conservative Center for Immigration Studies also agrees that the DREAM Act is bad idea but for different reasons.

“The issue is that you can use this act as a backdoor amnesty,” he says. “Once you give these people legal status, what do you do with the parents?”

Griffith says children who received U.S. citizenship could then turn around and demand citizenship for their parents. 

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates approximately 900,000 parents would be eligible for amnesty in addition to an estimated 1.2-million children, meaning that the DREAM Act would provide amnesty for almost 2.1-million illegal immigrants.

Griffith says the Center opposes any form of legislation that gives amnesty to illegal immigrants. 

“We shouldn’t offer incentives to those who break the law,” he says.

Critics of amnesty legislation also point to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which toughened border security but also granted amnesty to almost 3-million illegal immigrants. 

At the time, President Ronald Reagan argued that the bill would solve America’s illegal immigration problems.  Twenty-two years later there are an estimated 12-million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

But supporters of the DREAM Act say it is a necessary reform to the immigration system.

Grisella Martinez, an analyst with the National Immigration Law Centre, says the people who would benefit from the DREAM Act are American in everything but their citizenship.

“We are talking about really upstanding youth and people who will work hard,” Martinez says.  “These kids have been Americanized and have high school diplomas and some even have higher education and graduate level educations.”

Martinez says she views the DREAM Act as primarily about education and ensuring that upstanding and well-educated immigrants remain in the United States.

 “We’re not talking about people who have just got here,” says Martinez.  “They have been here a long time and despite the odds have achieved a lot and would have a benefit for the country.” When the act failed to pass in the Senate in 2007, Obama said, “today is another missed opportunity in the battle to solve the immigration crisis in this country.” He also acknowledged that Americans were deeply divided over immigration reform.

A politically contentious issue

“The immigration debate has been wrought with the politics of division and fear, and been exploited by some politicians,” he said in a statement on Oct. 24, 2007. “Today's vote proves that we need to do more to transcend these divisions – especially to provide solutions to help the most vulnerable in our society.”

Obama and Clinton both co-sponsored the act and have said that they would try to get a similar act passed in the future.  But last fall McCain changed his support.

On Oct. 24, 2007 McCain skipped a key vote on the DREAM Act.  His campaign literature also makes no mention of the DREAM Act.

“I think McCain would like it to not show up,” says Griffith.  “I think if you’d had a different Republican candidate it would have been an issue.”

McCain’s position on immigration, particularly his support of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2007 put him at odds with many people in the Republican Party.  Griffith says his decision to skip voting on the DREAM Act may have been a gesture to those frustrated with his policies.

But while his stance is in line with Obama’s and Clinton’s, the American public is deeply divided over the issue of immigration.

A survey conducted in 2004 by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government found that Americans were deeply divided over the issue of both legal and illegal immigration.  Forty-one percent of the Americans surveyed believed that immigration should be reduced; thirty-seven percent said immigration should remain at the same level and eighteen percent said immigration should be increased.

Immigration, and the DREAM Act, will likely remain a contentious issue in the United States.

The act has appeared on its own, or attached to other legislation, six times in the past seven years.  Its proponents continue to fight for its passage and Clinton has pledged to make it a priority if she is elected President.

After all, twelve-million people reside in the United States illegally and that number continues to grow each year as more and more people make the dangerous journey from northern Mexico into the United States.  Critics and proponents of the DREAM Act both agree something must be done.