Sacramento Bee (California)
June 11, 2008 Wednesday
METRO FINAL EDITION

A time to DREAM;
McCain, Obama should help revive bill

High school students such as Arthur Mkoyan are an asset to this
country. He came to Fresno as a 2-year-old from Armenia and graduated
Tuesday from Bullard High School as valedictorian. He has been
accepted to the University of California, Davis, where he would like
to major in chemistry.

But there’s a catch. He’s about to be deported to Armenia, a country
he doesn’t know and whose language he hardly speaks.

Mkoyan (whose case is also discussed in Peter Schrag’s column today)
is among about 65,000 students — 25,000 of them in California — who
graduate from high schools each year in a similar situation: They were
brought here by their parents and have grown up here, but they are
prevented from a path to citizenship.

Mkoyan’s parents fled the old Soviet Union, but their appeals for
asylum ran out this year. Arthur’s father is being held at a detention
center in Arizona; his mother was released to care for the
children. Arthur’s U.S.-born brother, now 12 years old, is a
U.S. citizen.

Friends and family are urging Sen. Dianne Feinstein to introduce a
private bill to allow Arthur to stay in the United States. But this is
not just a private matter. This case shows why U.S. immigration policy
needs a fix.

Last year, Congress considered the DREAM Act, which would have given
temporary legal status to kids who arrived in the United States before
age 16, have lived here for five years, graduated from a U.S. high
school and have no criminal record. The bargain is that if they go to
college or join the U.S. military, they can get a green card within
six years — putting them on a path to citizenship.

But a filibuster killed it. Presidential candidates Sens. John McCain
of Arizona and Barack Obama of Illinois should revive that bill.
McCain originally was a co-sponsor. Obama, a supporter, said he would
"fight to bring this legislation back for another vote as soon as
possible."

Now is the time. Students such as Mkoyan have been trained here and
brought up as Americans. We should do everything we can to tap their
talents for the United States.