Unauthorized Alien Students: Legislation in the 109th and 110th Congresses

Summary

Legalization of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States is a key issue in immigration reform. Recent discussions of this issue have focused mainly on controversial legislative proposals to create a pathway to legal status for a large majority of today’s unauthorized aliens. For many years, however, narrower bills were regularly introduced in Congress that sought to provide both legal immigration status and education-related relief to a subgroup of the larger unauthorized population: individuals who were brought, as children, to live in the United States by their parents or other adults. Historically, these bills, commonly referred to as the “DREAM Act,” have been less controversial than broader legalization proposals. The name DREAM Act derives from a bill title, Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, but refers more broadly to measures to provide immigration relief to unauthorized childhood arrivals, whether or not particular bills carry that name.

Unauthorized alien children in the United States may face various obstacles as they get older. They receive free public primary and secondary education, but may find it difficult to attend college for financial reasons. A provision enacted as part of a 1996 immigration law prohibits states from granting unauthorized aliens certain postsecondary educational benefits on the basis of state residence, unless equal benefits are made available to all U.S. citizens. This prohibition is commonly understood to apply to the granting of “in-state” residency status for tuition purposes. In addition, unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for federal student financial aid. More generally, they are not legally allowed to work in the United States and are subject to being removed from the country at any time.

Multiple DREAM Act measures were introduced in the 109th and 110th Congresses both as stand-alone measures and as parts of larger immigration reform bills. Most of these bills had two key components. They would have repealed the 1996 provision, thereby eliminating a restriction on state provision of postsecondary educational benefits to unauthorized aliens. They also would have provided immigration relief to certain unauthorized alien students by establishing a process for them to become legal permanent residents of the United States.

DREAM Act bills introduced and considered in the 109th and 110th Congresses are the focus of this report. While none of these measures were enacted, they serve as a bridge between older and newer versions of the DREAM Act and provide useful background information for analysis of more recent DREAM Act proposals. For discussion of these more recent proposals, see CRS Report RL33863, Unauthorized Alien Students: Issues and “DREAM Act” Legislation, by Andorra Bruno.