Washington D.C., Dec 4, 2010 / 17:08 pm
Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles has articulated the U.S. bishops' support for the DREAM Act, a proposal that would grant citizenship to many children whose parents brought them into the U.S. illegally.
The Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, Archbishop Gomez advocated the act's passage in a Dec. 2 letter to the U.S. Congress. He described the DREAM act as “a practical, fair, and compassionate solution for thousands of young persons” who had not voluntarily broken the law.
“It is important to note that these young people entered the United States with their parents at a young age,” he wrote, “and therefore did not enter without inspection on their own volition. We would all do the same thing in a similar situation.” Many of them, he said, have never known any country other than the U.S.
The act's full title is the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. It would allow young people who entered the United States before the age of 16 to apply for legal permanent residence and eventual citizenship, as long as they completed two years of higher education or military service.