DREAM Students Herta Llusho and Noe Guzman will highlight today’s congressional briefings on the DREAM Act. Please support them by calling on your congressional representative to co-sponsor the DREAM Act. Also, leave a comment for Herta and Llusho as they represent DREAMers all across America.

Here are the speakers:

Dr. Robert G. Templin, Jr. has been the president of Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) since 2002.  NOVA is Virginia’s largest institution of higher education and one of the nation’s largest community colleges.  NOVA enrolls more than 60,000 students annually at its six campuses. Prior to taking the helm at NOVA, Dr. Templin served as a senior fellow at the Morino Institute where he helped in the development and launch of Venture Philanthropy Partners, a $35 million philanthropic fund targeting youth-serving organizations in low-income communities in the Washington metro area. Between 1994 and 1999, Templin served as the president of Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, an organization that enhances Virginia’s economic competitiveness through technology-based economic development. During Templin’s tenure, the Center was credited with helping to create or retain over 12,000 high-tech jobs, attracting or creating more than 225 technology-based companies, and increasing company sales or new capital investment by more than $500 million. From 1986-1994 Templin served as president of Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Virginia.

Louis Caldera is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Mr. Caldera graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and earned law and business degrees from Harvard University.  After serving in the California State Assembly for five years, Mr. Caldera joined the Clinton administration in 1997, where he served as director and chief operating officer for the Corporation for National and Community Service.  In 1998, Mr. Caldera became the nation’s 17th Secretary of the Army. Since 2001, Mr. Caldera has worked in higher education, starting as a vice chancellor for university advancement at the California State University system, then as president and a member of the faculty of the School of Law at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches legislation, election law, and corporate governance. Early in 2009, he served in the Obama administration as director of the White House Military Office.

Herta Llusho is a DREAM student from Michigan. She was brought to the United States as a child by her mother, who fled Albania.  While Herta spoke no English when she arrived, she learned quickly and went on to graduate high school with a Grade Point Average above 4.0.  Herta is currently pursuing a degree in electrical engineering.  In addition to her studies, Herta is involved with her church, through which she has volunteered at homeless shelters and tutoring programs.

Noe Guzman is a DREAM student from Missouri. An editorial in the St. Louis Post Dispatch called Noe “a small-town kid with big dreams.”  Noe arrived in this country as a child, after his mother escaped an abusive husband in Mexico.  Noe graduated from high school last spring and is now enrolled in college, where he is taking pre-med courses and pursuing a multi-language major.  Noe discovered he was undocumented when he performed well in the Armed Services Vocational Battery Test and sought to enroll in the Marine Corps.