• WIN THE DREAM ACT!
• Stop the Raids and Deportations!
• No More Second-Class Treatment for Black and Brown!
• Full and Equal Rights for All Immigrants!

(from above) ... The families of undocumented students pay taxes and make an enormous contribution to our nation's economy and prosperity, yet their sons and daughters face the same kind of discrimination that young black students experienced in the old Jim Crow south. It is only fair and just for their children to receive the opportunities that are created by their labor.

We have a great deal of power now. This year, the student walkouts, marches, and boycotts that began in spring 2006 and have continued every year since won official recognition of the César Chávez Birthday Holiday in the LA Unified School District (LAUSD)—the second largest school district in the country. Mobilizations in early April 2009 supported by the Catholic Church demanding an end to the immigration raids have secured a de facto moratorium on raids from the Obama administration. Just following these mobilizations, workers in Bellingham, Washington who were arrested in an ICE raid were all released and given permission to work legally. Fresh forces continue to throw their weight behind our fight. On April 7, the Council of Catholic Bishops added their support to the voices of millions of Latina/o and immigrant youth calling for the passage of the Dream Act. Everything in the fight for immigrant rights is in motion. If we fight now, we can take important steps in our fight.

In spring 2006, youth played a decisive role in inspiring and leading the historic marches of millions that secured the defeat of the anti-immigrant measure HR4437. This measure, if it had passed, would have made the more than 12 million undocumented immigrants in America felons. The mobilizations that defeated this attack were the largest civil rights demonstrations in our nation's history. They showed the enormous power of the Latina/o communities to shape the American political agenda and win justice and progress for all the oppressed and downtrodden. To defeat the new Jim Crow and win equality and dignity for the Latina/o, immigrant, Asian, and other minority communities in this new era of hope, the Latina/o communities must take the lead again.

To win the Dream Act, we must make May 1st a day of powerful mass action. This will happen only if the Latina/o, black and immigrant youth and student leaders of the new civil rights movement take the lead and make it happen. Too many politicians, unions, immigrant rights, civil rights, and community organizations who should be actively campaigning for quick passage of the Dream Act are standing silent on the sidelines or refusing to support its passage unless it is coupled with some anti-immigrant measures. Without independent youth leadership, the Dream Act will remain like the dreams of undocumented immigrants in America today—deferred.

We can win the Dream Act, open up pathways to citizenship for our parents and families, and win so much more, if we mobilize the power of the new civil rights/immigrant rights movement. Independent youth leadership is the key to achieving any progress on questions of racism, discrimination and prejudice. This is our time. If we step forward and lead, there is no limit to the progress we can make! Our demands for progress must be heard. Boycott school, work, and march on May 1st!

National Petition Drive to Get Obama to Pass the Dream Act

Our GOAL is to get the Democrat-controlled Congress and Obama to enact the Dream Act!


Circulate the Physical Petition (use this to build the campaign on your schools, campuses, churches, everywhere! includes mailing address):
Download the Petition  [DOC file]


Sign & Circulate the Online Petition:
Copy and paste the following and send as a message to your friends:

ONLINE PETITION TO GET OBAMA TO PASS THE DREAM ACT http://www.bamn.com/dreamactpetition.asp

Here's what the petition says:

TURNING OUR HOPES INTO EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY:
OBAMA: ENACT THE FEDERAL DREAM ACT

No More Separate and Unequal Treatment for Undocumented Immigrant Students
Latina/o, Black, Asian, Arab, Native American, and White, Immigrants With & Without Papers—We Are America
-----------------------------------------------------

1. Our nation has entered a new era of hope. The newly formed and growing mass youth political movement that was the engine of the Obama campaign won a historic victory on November 4th and seeks an America free of racial prejudice, discrimination, and every vestige of the New Jim Crow. Now for the first time, millions of young Latina/o, black, other minority, immigrant, and poor white students who have been denied equal educational opportunities and access to higher education feel like the lives they have been working so hard to attain might actually be possible to realize. The task of the new civil rights movement and every young person, who for the first time are taking the risk of dreaming about what their lives, communities, state and nation could become, is to use our collective power to make those dreams real. We must make sure that President-elect Obama stays accountable to the mass movement that put him into office.

2. Hundreds of thousands of gifted undocumented students are denied the opportunity to attend college. Undocumented students are discriminatorily denied access to federal college financial aid, and even if they overcome this and graduate their future remains uncertain. Passage of the Federal Dream Act would give undocumented students the opportunity to receive federal financial aid and open a pathway to citizenship.

3. The families and communities of undocumented students contribute billions of tax dollars and incalculable hours of poorly paid labor that benefit the economy. Giving their sons and daughters the right to benefit from publicly-funded tuition aid programs is fair and just.

4. If enacted, the Federal Dream Act will establish the important principle that undocumented students can no longer be assigned to a second-class, inferior status and must be treated with respect and dignity. The longstanding legal right of undocumented students to receive the same public educational opportunities as everyone else would be closer to becoming real.

5. President Obama and a large bipartisan majority of Congress have repeatedly declared their support for the passage of the Federal Dream Act. On November 5, 2008, University of California-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau called on President Obama to enact the Federal Dream Act as soon as he assumes office. Immediate enactment of the Federal Dream Act would clear the way for California and other states to enact state level Dream Acts this year.

6. Winning the enactment of the Federal Dream Act will advance the fight for increased financial aid for all poor, working class, and middle class students who need massively expanded federal aid programs to attain a university education.

Therefore, we the undersigned:

1. Call on President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress to enact a Federal Dream Act in Obama's first 100 days of office.

2. Call on every university system, educational institution and association, state and local governmental entity to ask Obama to enact a Federal Dream Act.

3. Stand on the principle that Latina/o, black, Asian, Arab, Native American, and white, immigrants with and without papers—We are America.

9/4/08:
BAMN Call for March on Sacramento

Download the FLYER [PDF file]

On Friday, September 26, 2008, students from across the state will march in Sacramento to the West Steps of the Capitol to call on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the California Dream Act, SB 1301 (Cedillo). If enacted, the California Dream Act would make campus-based financial aid programs available to undocumented California students. Its passage would affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor and deserving students without papers who have the legal right to an education, but cannot attend college because they are discriminatorily denied access to state financial aid.

The families of undocumented students pay taxes and make an enormous contribution to California's economy and prosperity, yet their sons and daughters face the same kind of discrimination that young black students experienced in the old Jim Crow south. Undocumented students are unjustifiably denied equal educational opportunities and assigned to permanent second class status.

Every undocumented student who graduates from a California high school knows that from the moment they walk across the stage they will not have the same opportunity to go to college as their classmates, even if they are the valedictorian of their class. It is unfair and unjust to ask undocumented students to accept a situation in which their dreams are deferred because of something they could not control and cannot change—which side of the border they were born on. Having the Dream Act signed into law will establish the principle that undocumented students are the peers and equals of every other young person in California and that their right to develop their full potential will be honored and respected in this state.

BAMN and other rally organizers are inviting Senator Obama to address the Sacramento rally in order to turn his message of hope into reality for so many deserving young people in California. At a similar moment last year, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called on Governor Schwarzenegger to sign the California Dream Act. In 2007, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill on the last day on which he could act. Senator Obama has also spoken out in favor of the passage of a Federal Dream Act.

For the past 15 years, California has been a backwater for the civil rights of Latina/o, black, and immigrant people. Today, we have the opportunity to turn that era around. With the nation poised to elect the first black president, and the right to gay marriage upheld in our state, this is the time to turn a corner in California to end the Jim Crow practices of denying undocumented students their equal right to go to college.

RESOURCES

• Slideshow of the Oct. 4, 2007 march for the Dream Act (follow link, and find the slideshow in the top-right corner)
• Read the California Dream Act
• Make California a Sanctuary State website

A Political Program and Perspectives for Our Movement

• BAMN Declaration on Immigrant Rights

• Where We Go From Here: Report on the March 30, 2007 walkouts and perspective for our how our struggle for dignity and equality can win.

• Call to Action for Leaders of the New Civil Rights Movement: Report and perspectives coming out of the spring 2006 mass mobilizations.

• Youth Declaration for a New Civil Rights Movement

• BAMN's Principles