Dream Act Fact Sheet

June, 2020

The DREAM Act (short for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act) was a bill that would have granted legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors; and then lived and went to school here. Key components included enhanced border security, providing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and opening educational opportunities.

In the last few years the term “DREAMer” has been used to describe young people addressed by the Dream Act and who identify as American.

Facts You Should Know

  • The Dream Act is bi-partisan legislation first introduced in Congress in 2001, but failed to pass. The bill’s intent was to create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented children who grew up in the United States.
  • Due to the failure to pass the Dream Act, the President instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy in 2012. This policy allowed certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthday and before June 15, 2012, to receive a renewable two-year work permit as well as an exemption from deportation.
  • At least seventeen states, including Florida, have laws allowing students who meet specific requirements, regardless of their immigration status, to pay in-state tuition rates at public post=secondary institutions.

  • Rhode Island’s Board of Governors for Higher Education and the University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents also have adopted policies permitting eligible students to pay in-state tuition rates, regardless of their immigration status. The University of Michigan’s Board of Regents adopted a similar policy for its campuses.

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May, 2020

Birthright citizenship is granted to a person by virtue of the fact of being born in the United States. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Facts You Should Know

  • The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868.
  • The 14th Amendment overturned the 1857 Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court. In that decision the Court held that “negroes, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves, whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.”
  • In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in the Wong Kim Ark case that Congress had no power under the 14th Amendment to restrict or limit birthright citizenship. Under this decision, Native Americans born on reservations were not considered born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not citizens. This was corrected in the Nationality Act of 1940, which declared all Native Americans born in the United States to be U. S. citizens.
  • Under current law and court rulings, U. S. born children of undocumented immigrants are given citizenship by the 14th Amendment.
  • In 2015, Texas limited the identification documents it would accept to identify parents and issue birth certificates for babies of undocumented immigrants. Facing a federal lawsuit, Texas agreed to expand the list of acceptable documents.

  • In recent years, legislation has been introduced and presidential executive orders threatened that would restrict birthright citizenship to children born to U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, or aliens serving in the U.S. military. To date, no such legislation has been enacted nor has an executive order been issued.

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