UCLA provides internship opportunities to illegal immigrants

Illegal immigrant students in California are actualizing their dreams this summer.

The UCLA Labor Center’s Dream Resource Center is allowing undocumented students to apply for Dream Summer, a ten-week summer program that provides paid internship opportunities for immigrants in California, regardless of their immigration or insurance status. The program will encourage them to advocate for immigration reform and promote universal health care access regardless of immigration status.

UCLA is among the growing number of University of California schools, including UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, to provide academic scholarships and opportunities for exclusively for illegal immigrants.   Tweet This

The Center says the program began in 2011 after the U.S. Senate failed to pass the DREAM Act in 2010, which would have given a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants who came to the United states before the age of 16. The program claims to have provided 418 internship opportunities to immigrant youth throughout the nation.

UCLA is among the growing number of University of California schools, including UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, to provide academic scholarships and opportunities exclusively for illegal immigrants, some of whom move on to become active spokesmen for immigration reform.

The US Census Bureau reports that as of July 1, 2014, Hispanics were the predominant ethnic population of California’s roughly 14.99 million residents. An estimated 68 percent of the state’s undocumented population is Mexican-born.

Seth Ronquillo, a spokesman for the Dream Resource Center, told the Daily Bruin, “Many of the participants in the program go on to become the leaders of the immigration reform movement. By working in social justice organizations, they are given the resources they need to continue in activism.”

For international students, the requirement is more stringent. “Students have to get credit for paid as well as unpaid internships to stay in the U.S. on an educational F-1 visa with approval from the Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars,” the Daily Bruin reports.

“I feel that UCLA as a public institution in California was established to educated the citizens of California as well as the U.S. and legal international students, not illegal immigrants. By only offering these paid internships to illegal immigrants UCLA is not only hurting law abiding citizens who are of all ethnicities including Hispanic, but they are also promoting and sponsoring people who are breaking the laws of our state and country. [This] is ironic since some of their funding comes from the state in which they are advocating for people to break this state's law,” Alexis Moran, a second-year Hispanic student at UCLA told Campus Reform,

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @PardesSeleh

Via: Campus Reform

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The Ten Most Abusive Obama Executive Actions

President Obama has made liberal use of "executive action" throughout his presidency, and pledged to make even more use of executive action in this year's State of the Union speech. He seems to think that because Republicans don't want to implement his agenda, he can go around Congress.

The Heritage Foundation is out with a new report on President Obama's executive actions, titled "An Executive Unbound," finding that "abusive, unlawful, even potentially unconstitutional unilateral action has been a hallmark of the Obama Administration." They've also compiled a list of the top ten abusive executive actions taken by the President.

1. Amending Obamacare’s employer mandate, providing an unauthorized subsidy to congressional staff, and encouraging state insurance commissioners not to enforce certain requirements.
2 Inventing labor law “exemptions” in violation of the WARN Act so that workers would not receive notice of impending layoffs days before the 2012 election.
3. Waiving the mandatory work requirement under the 1996 comprehensive welfare reform law, which required able-bodied adults to work, prepare for work, or look for work in order to receive benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
4. Ignoring a statutory deadline and refusing to consider an application related to nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, which activists sought to block for years.
5. Circumventing the Senate’s duty to provide advice and consent on appointments and instead making “recess” appointments in violation of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution when the Senate was actually in session.
6. Deciding not to defend the constitutionality of the federal definition of marriage in court.
7. Implementing Common Core national standards through strings-attached waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act.
8. Intimidating Florida to stop its voter roll cleanup, which included removing ineligible voters such as noncitizens, before the 2012 election.
9. Imposing the DREAM Act by executive fiat under the guise of “prosecutorial discretion.”
10. Refusing to enforce federal drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana.

Heritage's entire report is an excellent read - and these are ten of the most egregious actions of the Obama Administration.

Via: Townhall

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Michelle Obama: 'Barack Hasn't Done Any of This Alone'

(CNSNews.com) - "Write the biggest check you can possibly write," First lady Michelle Obama told a gathering of female Democratic senators in New York City on Monday.

She said her husband needs these women to "dig deep" so the "right people" -- Democrats -- will be elected in the 2014 midterms.

Touting the nation's economic recovery, Mrs. Obama said, "Barack hasn't done any of this alone, just sitting by himself in the Oval Office. So sad," she joked.

She said her husband "needed Congress" to pass the stimulus law, a fair pay law, and the Affordable Care Act. 

And then she talked about "frustrating defeats," and two situations where President Obama "had to sign an executive order."

"The DREAM Act -- an act that gives immigrant kids a fair shot, kids brought here by their parents through no fault of their own -- this act failed, once by just five votes in the Senate, and once by just four. So the President had to sign an executive order to finally get these kids some relief. 

Via: CNS News
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Activists take immigration reform vigil to congressman's home

PEORIA, Ariz.-- Immigration activists are spending 24 hours outside the front gates of Arizona Congressman Trent Franks’ home.

A couple dozen showed up Friday night, and say they’ll stay through the night and day Saturday, holding continuous prayer vigils.

The group is hoping to appeal to Franks’ deep religious convictions. They say they want to make the ‘moral case’ for immigration reform and a path to citizenship.

“We know he’s a man of faith,” Pedro Lopez told 3TV. “And that’s one thing we have in common with the congressman.”

Franks greeted the group, and spent time listening to their concerns and stories of family separation due to immigration issues and deportation.

“One of our DREAMers said she hasn’t seen her father in a year, and that really affected him,” activist Donna Cheung said.

“They’re absolutely wonderful people,” Franks said  of the group, as he and his family left for an event Friday night.

“I've got my family here with me. If I lived in a different country, I'd want to come here, too.  I’d do whatever I could to put my family in a better situation,” he added.

Franks promised to return to pray with the group later in the night, and allowed them to hang posters on his fence.

Peoria Police sent a couple patrol cars to watch the vigil, but it remained quiet and peaceful.

Via: azfamily.com

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Carney Tells Republicans to ‘Pay Some Attention to Spanish-Language Media’

With the immigration debate ongoing and the House weighing its legislative plans, Jay Carney said Republican leaders need to follow Spanish-language media.

Noting a La Opinión editorial opposing Republicans’ version of the DREAM Act, Carney told reporters that “all of us, but mostly Republican leaders, [need] to pay some attention to the Spanish-language media in this country.” (La Opinión is America’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, and second-most-widely-circulated newspaper in Los Angeles.)

“That media are making clear [sic] they expect action from Congress, and they hold those who oppose commonsense solutions to this challenge responsible,” he explained.

Eric Cantor and Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte have reportedly been working on a Republican version of the DREAM Act that provide a path to citizenship for the children who were brought to the U.S. illegally. Democrats have already voiced dissatisfaction with the bill because the children’s parents won’t have a similar path.

Carney reiterated that the administration wants to pass a comprehensive version of immigration reform, rather than taking the piece-by-piece approach preferred by House Republicans. Carney said he believed that, ultimately, the “the consensus is so strong” behind comprehensive reform that “a bill will land on the president’s desk that meets his principles.”

Via: National Review Online

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Obama says Amnesty is yours for $465

The Obama administration will formally begin granting some young undocumented immigrants legal status and work permits later this month under a controversial new policy first announced by President Obama in June.

The Department of Homeland Security today announced details of the application and approval process for the DREAM Act-like program, outlining specific eligibility requirements and a $465 fee. It will begin Aug. 15.

Illegal immigrants younger than 30 who came to the United States before age 16, have lived here for at least five years continuously, attend or have graduated from high school or college, and have no criminal convictions are eligible to submit requests for so-called deferred action (legalese for an official exemption from deportation).

Via: ABC News

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