When he was three years old, local community college student Mohammed, who asked that his last name not be printed because he is in the country illegally, immigrated to Ann Arbor from Iran with his parents in 1989.

He has lived here ever since, attending Ann Arbor public schools for his entire primary education. But because of a lawyer’s filing mistake when his parents first arrived in the United States, he remains an undocumented immigrant.

Mohammed has taken the maximum amount of transferable credits at a Michigan community college and wants to finish his degree in social work at the University of Michigan. However, due to high tuition costs and a lack of eligibility for in-state tuition or financial aid because he is undocumented, he cannot attend the University.

Students like Mohammed are uniting to urge the U.S. Senate to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act to help undocumented young people, who arrived to the United States as children, become citizens by either completing two years of military service or attend college for two years. The bill would also allow universities to offer these students in-state tuition at state schools and make them eligible for financial aid. Currently, it is unclear if state universities can offer in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.

At its weekly meeting last night, the Michigan Student Assembly passed a resolution supporting a federal DREAM Act in a vote of 17-5-10. It was authored by Rackham Rep. Kate Stenvig and LSA Rep. Robby Saldaña.

The resolution includes supporting a march for the act that will be held on May 1 in southwest Detroit. The march will begin in Patton Memorial Park at 10 a.m. and end at Clark Park with a rally at noon. Organizations contributing to the march and rally include Migrant and Immigrant Rights Awareness, By Any Means Necessary and Latinos Unidos/United de Michigan.

“Many of these (undocumented immigrants) have attended U.S. schools for most of their lives, but their immigration status bars them from opportunities that make a college education affordable, including in-state tuition rates, loans and grants, most private scholarships and the ability to work legally,” the resolution reads.

The resolution states that MSA will send a copy of the resolution to President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, The Michigan Daily, The Ann Arbor News and the Detroit Free Press.

Several supporters of the DREAM Act addressed the assembly about the issue at both last night's and last week's meetings, encouraging representatives to vote in favor of the resolution.

Laura Sanders, a lecturer in the School of Social Work and founder of an interfaith coalition for immigrant rights, stressed the importance of the cause at MSA’s meeting last week.

“The whole issue of immigration is really at the forefront of our human rights and civil rights movements right now,” she said. “We don’t really realize how under attack our immigrant community is, and you can really change that. You can really have a voice as Michigan students.”

The proposal was originally brought before the assembly last week but was tabled until this week because the meeting ran too long.

The DREAM Act applies to students with “good moral character” who arrived in the United States before turning 16, lived in the country for at least five years and graduated from high school or earned a General Education Development diploma.