With Governor Tim Pawlenty threatening to veto legislation providing more educational opportunities for immigrants, supporters are mobilizing for a final push to save the Dream Act.

The Dream Act would allow young people who have lived in Minnesota and attended Minnesota high schools to pay in-state tuition at state universities and colleges, even though they are not citizens. Currently, many of these young people ? who often come to the state as part of immigrant families ? are priced out of higher education, proponents said.

The Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network and other groups are urging people to contact members of the House Ways and Means Committee and ask them to keep the Dream Act in the higher education omnibus funding bill. Pawlenty sent a letter to the committee members Tuesday calling on them to remove the measure from the funding bill.

The Dream Act could be implemented at no cost to the state, members of the Immigrant Freedom Network said. "Instead, if the bill passes, greater revenues for the state would be created in the form of a more professionalized workforce and a higher tax base."

The bill has bipartisan support and is authored by DFLer Sandy Pappas in the Senate and Republican Ray Cox in the House. It is backed by groups as different as organized labor and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

For more information
Visit the Immigrant Freedom Network website, www.mnfr.org

Members of the Ways and Means Committee
All numbers are 651 area code.
Chair: Jim Knoblach (R) 296-6316
Vice Chair: Jerry Dempsey (R) 296-8635
Jim Abeler (R) 296-1729
Rod Hamilton (R) 296-5373
Denny McNamara (R) 296-3135
Bud Nornes (R) 296-4946
Dennis Ozment (R) 296-4306
Dan Dorman (R) 296-8216
Ron Erhardt (R) 296-4363
Bob Gunther (R) 296-3240
Barb Sykora (R) 296-4315
Connie Ruth (R) 296-5368
Ron Abrams (R) 296-9934