Perchance to DREAM

The first comprehensive history of the DREAM Act and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)In 1982, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Plyler v. Doe that undocumented children had the right to attend public schools without charge or impediment, regardless of their immigration status. The ruling raised a question: what if undocumented students, after graduating from the public school system, wanted to attend college? Perchance to DREAM is the first comprehensive history of the DREAM Act, which made its initial congressional appearance in 2001, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the discretionary program established by President Obama in 2012 out of Congressional failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Michael A. Olivas relates the history of the DREAM Act and DACA over the course of two decades.With the Trump Administration challenging the legality of DACA and pursuing its elimination in 2017, the fate of DACA is uncertain. Perchance to DREAM follows the political participation of DREAMers, who have been taken hostage as pawns in a cruel game as the White House continues to advocate anti-immigrant policies. Perchance to DREAM brings to light the many twists and turns that the legislation has taken, suggests why it has not gained the required traction, and offers hopeful pathways that could turn this darkness to dawn.

Compassionately curated by a prolific expert on both immigration and education law and policy, Perchance to Dream gathers and narrates a complex interplay of U.S. law, politics, and (in)humanity with Dreamers at its core. Exhaustively researched and elegantly told, the complexity of this history gives way to the simplicity of human tragedy that envelops all of us--our many failed chances to honor the dreams of those merely seeking dignity and opportunity in our midst. Through it all, presidents have come and gone, senators have lived and died, immigrants have stayed or been deported, while those of us who believe in compassion have waited, perchance, for hearts and stars to align.--Steven W. Bender, author of Mea Culpa: Lessons on Law and Regret from U.S. History, Michael Olivas, the nation's leading expert on immigration law and higher education, offers the definitive history of the DREAM Act and DACA. But he does much more, analyzing the long and winding road that undocumented youth have traveled in their struggle for justice and inclusion. Full of arresting observations informed by a lifetime of work as law professor, public intellectual, and pioneering activist, Olivas tells this compelling story with unique insight and flair.--Hiroshi Motomura, author of Immigration Outside the Law

Michael A. Olivas is William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at UH. His books include Colored Men And Hombres Aquí: Hernandez v. Texas and the Emergence of Mexican American Lawyering; The Law And Higher Education: Cases And Materials on Colleges in Court Third Edition; and Education Law Stories (with Ronna Greff Schneider).