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Know Your Rights
Source: Daily News
Subject: Immigration
Type: Media Coverage

New DREAM Act Gives Undocumented Kids Reason to Hope, but Senate has Final Say

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday gave the green light to a bill giving green cards to undocumented kids who go to college or join the military.

The Senate is slated to take up the DREAM Act on Thursday, but backers on Wednesday couldn’t guarantee the 60 votes they need to pass the immigration bill. The House’s narrow tally was 216 to 198.

"Oh, my God, I don’t know if I’m going to sleep tonight!" said Francisco Curiel,** 18, an undocumented high school senior who left Mexico to join his mom in Astoria, Queens, three years ago.

He spent much of the day calling representatives or glued to C-Span anxiously awaiting the vote.

"I feel really, really represented," he said. "When they passed it we started jumping all over the room."

The act only applies to undocumented immigrants who arrive in the U.S. before they turn 16. They must be under 30 when they apply, spend at least two years in college or the military and have no serious criminal record.

**A member of Make the Road New York (MRNY) Youth Power Project.