For years groups of people and individuals have been stumping for "dreamers" -- or officially for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. President Obama's new immigration policy will allow certain qualified individuals under 30 -- most raised in the United States but without official papers -- to remain in the United States. This gallery puts a human face on those dreamers who may show their support for Obama's decision come November.
Students from left: David Buenrostro, Adrian James, and Jahel Ramos protest outside the Obama campaign offices in Culver City, Calif., June 14, 2012. The students demand that President Obama issue an executive order to stop deportations of illegal immigrant students in favor of the DREAM Act, Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors. In July 2011, California Gov. Brown enacted the California DREAM Act, giving illegal immigrant students access to private college scholarships for state schools. (National Journal) Nelly Rodriguez, 18, journeyed from Wichita, Kansas, to attend a rally April 20, 2004, joining about 100 students, some facing deportation, in a mock graduation ceremony on the Mall. (National Journal) Inclement Minnesota weather in February 2007 does not deter supporters of the DREAM Act seeking in-state tuition for some foreign-born students. (National Journal) From left: The shirts of the Lopez children -- Antony, Hillary and Angelita Lopez, all of Arlington, Va., -- read "Don't Deport My Mom." Viviana Oxlaj joins her offspring at a July 26, 2011, rally for immigration reform at Lafayette Park outside the White House. (National Journal) Undocumented student Alma Castrejon was originally from Mexico and holds two college degrees but at the time of the December 2010 protest could not work legally in the U.S. (National Journal) Matheus DeSouza, 19, from Brazil, left, and Megha Sharma, 22, from India, donate blood in December 2010 while participating in an blood drive as part of an effort by young undocumented college age students to show their support for the Dream Act. (National Journal) Steve Li, 20, center, won a temporary reprieve from deportatioan in November 2010 when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced legislation halting immigration enforcement proceedings against him. Then a community college student, Li moved to San Francisco with his parents when he was 12 and did not know they were all in the country illegally until immigration agents arrested them two months earlier. The parents were ordered to return to China, where they lived before they fled to Peru. (National Journal) Elisama Montijo, 10, of Homestead, Fla., places a flower in a mock casket where the dreams of undocumented students are laid to rest, during a protest of undocumented students and farm workers in Doral, Fla., June 9, 2010. (National Journal) Reform activist Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, testified before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing regarding immigration reform on June 28, 2011, attended by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Vargas, who revealed himself as an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines, this week wrote the introduction to a Time magazine cover article on immigration reform. (National Journal) The fuel behind Obama's move is obvious, stated in the signage boasted by undocumented college student Jorge Herrera, 18, right, of Carson, Calif., at a Dec. 18, 2010, rally in Los Angeles. (National Journal)
