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Although immigration reform remains a controversial topic in an increasingly volatile political environment, yesterday the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security held a hearing on the Development, Relief, and Education for Minors (DREAM) Act of 2011 (S 952). Several hundred “dreamers” attended and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and Secretary of the Department of Education were among the witnesses.  While this bill has been reintroduced in each congress since 2001, this is the first ever hearing the Senate has held on the issue.

The DREAM Act would grant citizenship to young individuals on the following basis:

• The individual must have been continuously physically present in the US since at least 5 years prior to the date of enactment of this Act.
• The individual was 15 years of age or younger on the date that they initially entered the US.
• The individual has been a person of good moral character since their entry into the US and has not been convicted of a felony.
• The individual has been admitted to an institution of higher education in the US or has committed 2 years to military service
• The individual is 35 years of age or younger on the date of enactment of the Act.

Senators Durbin, Leahy, and Schumer have long been champions of the DREAM Act. Senator Durbin called it a “simple act of American justice” and expressed frustration at the fact that we allow foreigners into the US on visas to attend American universities and then send them back to their home countries to work for and develop businesses that compete against American companies, yet we have so far been unwilling to take steps to retain gifted and talented young people who intend to stay in the US and contribute to our own society and economy.

Those senators opposed to the bill expressed several concerns throughout the hearing:

• It would allow individuals with misdemeanors, which in some states can include violent crime, to still be eligible for the DREAM Act

Response by Ret. Colonel Margaret Stock (currently an immigration lawyer): The Immigration and Nationality Act contains a definition for ‘good moral character’, which includes a lengthy list of offenses, including those that opposing senators are concerned about, which would render an individual ineligible. Also, including this statute in the bill prevents the ability of DHS to waive this requirement.

• The cost of implementation is high and enactment of the bill would be harmful to the economy

Response by Secretary of DHS, Janet Napolitano: She believes that the Department currently has enough resources and finances to implement the bill with little or no effect on other programs. It would also allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to prioritize immigration goals and would free up strained resources.

Response by Secretary of Arne Duncan: a 2010 study from UCLA, estimated that the total number of students who would benefit from the DREAM Act could generate between $1.4 and $3.6 trillion dollars over their working lifetime, which would increase the revenue for the federal government generated by taxes.

• The DREAM Act will encourage further undocumented immigration

Response by Secretary Duncan: The opportunities it would provide are not prospective or unlimited. Only young people who were already here for five years before the legislation is enacted into law would be eligible for lawful permanent resident status, and the period in which they could apply for adjustment under the DREAM Act is limited. Those who arrive after that time would not be eligible.

While immigration reform, particulary the DREAM Act, has seen considerable bipartisan support in the past there remains significant differences between what both sides are looking for in the bill. This is especially true in the House, which introduced a similar bill last month (HR 1842) and support is deeply divided along party lines.

The document lists virtually all programs and competitions under which the Department of Education has invited or expects to invite applications for new awards and provides actual or estimated deadline dates for the transmittal of applications under these programs. The lists are in the form of charts — organized according to the Department’s principal program offices — and include programs and competitions they have previously announced, as well as those they plan to announce at a later date.

Note: This document is advisory only and is not an official application notice of the Department of Education. The Department expects to provide updates to this document starting in the first week of November in a fiscal year and continuing through the following July.

Department of Education FY11 Grants Forecast

The House this week passed the Military Construction-VA and the Agriculture Appropriations bills. While Military Construction-VA passed with little difficulty, the Agriculture bill passed with all Democrats and 19 Republicans opposing the measure. Many democrats have spoken out against the Agriculture bill because they are concerned that it contans deep cuts to programs that are vital to low income citizens.

Also this week, the House Appropriations Committee marked up and passed the Energy & Water and Defense Spending Bills. Energy and Water was approved by a vote of 26 to 20 and the latest markup contained no significant changes to accounts of particular interest to research universities. The Defense Appropriations bill also passed with increased funding for Defense 6.1 Basic Research above both the FY11 level and the Administration’s FY12 request. Amounts for programs relevant to the higher ed community are as follows:

• 6.1 Basic Research: $2.099 billion, an increase of 7.8% above FY11
• 6.2 Applied Research: $4.672 billion, an increase of 4.9% above FY11
• National Defense Education Program: $86.6 million, a cut of 8.2% below FY11
• DARPA: no set amount is given, but the following language was provided in the accompanying report: 

“…DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use…Corporate strategies have greatly improved the efficiency of DARPA’s financial execution and ability to obligate funds. The Committee has determined that these efficiencies will result in cost reductions of $100,000,000 in fiscal year 2012. Therefore, the Director of DARPA shall provide to the congressional defense committees, not later than 60 days after enactment of this Act, a report detailing by program element and project the application of each detailed reduction.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee has held a handful of hearings, but otherwise their spending bills remain stagnant.

Below is a link to a chart highlighting the final FY11 appropriated numbers for federal agencies and programs.

Final FY11 Numbers

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a private pharmaceutical company in a heated patent rights battle (Stanford v. Roche). Last week’s decision complicates current university patents, as the majority of justices ruled that neither the government nor institutions that receive federal research grants are guaranteed automatic rights to patents that may arise from the research.

In 2005, Stanford University contested Roche Molecular Systems’ patent rights of an HIV detection kit, as the kit process heavily relied on polymerase chain reaction technology initially developed at the university. This R&D was produced by former faculty member Mark Holodniy who went onto expand the research at Cetus, a private biotechnology research company. Holodniy had originally signed a contract ensuring Stanford University the authority to assign patent rights in the future to his research, though later yielded all patent rights because of his access to Cetus research facilities. Consequently, Holodniy’s intellectual property was guaranteed to Cetus and was later acquired by Roche.

Although much of the flak for Stanford’s loss in the ruling stems from the ambiguous language of the initial contract between Holodniy and the university, other research universities and their associations such as the American Association of Universities (AAU) and Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) are still concerned with the long-standing implications of this decision.