Since coming to this country, all three have been great students, model citizens and hard workers. All three want to go to college -- two are currently enrolled, in spite of the fact that when and if they graduate, they will not be able to work legally. One would like to join the U. S. Armed Forces.

During what turned out to be a long day, these students talked to top staff members in the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX).

Senator Hutchison worked hard to see the bill move forward. Had her efforts been successful, her staff was prepared to present a balanced set of changes to the bill to make it more acceptable to everyone. She exhibited great leadership, as she worked for a bi-partisan solution to the problem. It was also very clear that she understands the ethical and moral implications of the issues surrounding the debate, as well as of the problems facing these wonderful students. She made us proud. Her staff assured us that they were not giving up.

I wish everyone could have heard these students explain their lives, their goals and their dreams. As they told their stories, tears flowed. It was moving just to be in the room with them.

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) would not allow the students in his offices, saying that he nor his staff would sit down with anyone in violation of federal law -- never mind that the offense in question is a civil matter, not criminal.

And never mind that these children did not knowingly violate any law when they were brought here.

His staff explained his "No" vote as the result of and the fear that the bill would not be open for amendment or debate if passed to the next step.

The Dallas Morning News published a story this morning by Washington Bureau reporter Dave Michaels quoting Senator Cornyn as saying the "sympathetic" nature of the issues surrounding the DREAM Act make it politically unwise to act now. He judges it better to use the legislation and the issue as a political tool in deciding on any comprehensive immigration reform down the road.

That may be smart politically, but it is terrible policy for the hundreds of thousands of students across the nation who are like my three young friends.

Why would we want to lose them to our national life and economy, especially at a time when we need more bi-lingual professionals than ever in our history? Why waste the investment we've already made in these young lives? Why keep them living in fear, needless fear?

The question here is not one of "sympathy," though surely we've not reached the place as a people where sympathy is a weak or negative value, have we?

In fact, the question is about morality, good faith, fairness, justice and solving a horrible and pressing problem.

My young friends returned to Dallas a bit frustrated and a lot disappointed. They are concerned about their future. To be sent back to Mexico after 13 years in Dallas, with no family, no hometown, no idea what to do... those prospects would concern anyone.

They brought their cameras for the trip.

After our meetings in the Senate, we took a cab to the Lincoln Memorial.

I wish everyone could have seen them. Standing where Dr. King stood. Gazing up at the amazing statue of President Lincoln. Watching the video presentation in the small museum space.

They were so proud to be in Washington, the capitol city of the only nation they've known--the place they call home.

Cornyn rejects students

Three Dallas students who traveled to Washington on Wednesday had high hopes for the bill's passage.

All of them entered the U.S. before they were 11, brought by Mexican parents seeking work, they said.

It was their first trip to Washington and they were dressed for important meetings with senators. A meeting with Ms. Hutchison's staff lasted about a half-hour. But Mr. Cornyn would not allow them into his office because they were not legal residents, he said.

Smarting from that rejection, one of the students, an 18-year-old woman, said she would have told Mr. Cornyn: "Put yourself in our shoes. Try to imagine your life as an immigrant."

Mr. Cornyn said his staff met with Larry James and Silvia Bustos, immigration activists from Dallas who accompanied the students. But his staff would not meet with people "who admit to not being legally in the country or are here in violation of immigration laws - basically flaunting that," Mr. Cornyn said.

Though the three students said they were seeking legal avenues to citizenship, they nevertheless live under the threat of deportation, said Mr. James, a Dallas pastor and president of Central Dallas Ministries.

"It's like a wall you can't look past," said one of the students, a 19-year-old who attends Mountain View College and asked that his name not be used. "You don't know what's going to happen with your life."

The 19-year-old and his friends said they supported Mr. Durbin's DREAM Act because it would have given them certainty that they would not have to go back to Mexico, a country they barely know.

"They have nothing to go back to," said Ms. Bustos, an employee at SMU's Dedman School of Law who traveled with them. "This is their country."

Dallas Morning News