Christopher Dodd

Opinion Source Information:

He co-sponsored the so-called DREAM Act, the effect of which would be to allow states to admit undocumented immigrants at the in-state tuition rate. The default position is cleverly achieved by defining a "conditional permanent resident status" to qualify the children as "legal" so long as they meet certain criteria.

Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2007 or the DREAM Act of 2007 - Amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to repeal the denial of an unlawful alien's eligibility for higher education benefits based on state residence unless a U.S. national is similarly eligible without regard to such state residence. 

Authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to cancel the removal of, and adjust to conditional permanent resident status, an alien who: (1) entered the United States before his or her sixteenth birthday, and has been present in the United States for at least five years immediately preceding enactment of this Act; (2) is a person of good moral character; (3) is not inadmissible or deportable under specified grounds of the Immigration and Nationality Act; (4) at the time of application, has been admitted to an institution of higher education, or has earned a high school or equivalent diploma; and (5) from the age of 16 and older, has never been under a final order of exclusion, deportation, or removal.

Cosponsors [as of 2008-07-06]

Sen. Christopher Dodd [D-CT]

Opinion Source Information:

"While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.  I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage. And I want them to know that, even if he was a little late, their dad came down on the right side of history."  [Think Progress]