Tereza Lee and Undocumented Asian America | Asian Americans

First introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) provides an opportunity for young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to be given a pathway toward U.S. citizenship. This immigration bill came to be established because of Tereza Lee, a Brazilian-born South Korean who moved to the U.S. with her parents in 1985 when she was two years old. She is an undocumented American referred to as the first DREAMer. As of 2018, approximately 3.6 million undocumented youth entered the U.S.

Tereza’s Chicago high school artistic director advocated on her behalf to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, which led him to co-sponsor the DREAM Act with U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch. This bill had bipartisan support from other lawmakers and President George W. Bush.