As all of you know, a week from today is the National Back to School DREAM Act Day of Action. This event includes undocumented students around the country standing up, organizing in local high school and college campuses, and saying more or less something along these lines:

“Enough is enough. I am going to make the immigration debate about the American Dream that immigrants carry with them, the sacrifices that my parents made to come to this country, and the potential I have to make this society better. Oh, and also about the fact that so many U.S. citizens support that vision.”

It’s a mouthful, but if you’ve seen how many actions we have already scheduled, you’ll believe it is true. But what if this students were using the language of the anti-immigrant movement?

They would surely seem a  little odd. And the message would be much more simplistic, perhaps looking to use incendiary lexicon to distract from the complex issues we are trying to tackle. They might even resort to a little capitalization similar to what they do when they write about ILLEGALS, and pretend to defend TAXPAYERS, and claim they represent the essence of what is AMERICAN. If the Dreamer movement wrote like the anti-immigrant movement does, it might look something like this:

Millions of Dreamers all over the country are standing up for the BEST single piece of legislation EVER: THE AMERICAN DREAM ACT! So far Dreamers have scheduled somewhere between 114 to 600 actions in different college campuses, spread across somewhere between 28 to 55 American states. The driving force behind this movement has been the United We Dream National Petition, which so far has gathered somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000,000 signatures. America needs this NOW. We cannot WAIT IN LINE behind other countries that welcome productive, hardworking, and talented young immigrant students to fuel growth. The DREAM Act is clearly the most PATRIOTIC bill that represents the views of REAL AMERICANS that want just and humane reform.

Well, the last sentence might be true, as much as our supporters on the left might cringe about patriotism. The DREAM Act is a moderate proposal supported by both Democrats and Republicans. It makes demands on either education or military service. It shows a modern view of patriotism as service and hard work. On the other hand, and to be honest, we have ONLY scheduled 115 actions in 27 states, and we have roughly 20,000 petition signatures (you should still sign it). Some of the actions are really small, to the point of  two or three students leading a petition drive on an otherwise isolated campus. Some are large, and will involve elected officials, religious figures, university presidents, and community leaders. But all count with the support of American citizens of different creeds, races, sexual orientations, and ideological beliefs.

People that work for FAIR and ALIPAC might not be racist, they might not even be xenophobes, but they are JUST PLAIN WRONG about how to deal with immigration. And that’s the point we gotta keep on stressing to win this campaign. I spent all day today talking to the Dreamers who are planning actions, and the force behind this movement is truly static and inspiring. Join us, and let’s do this!