Here in New York, a group of immigrant youths have entered their second week of a hunger strike outside the offices of Democratic Senator Charles Schumer. The hunger strikers are calling on Schumer to support the DREAM Act, which would grant the children of undocumented immigrants a path to legal status. Schumer is the chair of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee. The hunger strikers include twenty-year-old Sonia Guinansaca, who was born in Ecuador.

Sonia Guinansaca: “Senator Schumer has a strong role. He has played at beating around the bush, saying that, 'Yeah, I support the DREAM Act,' but we need him right now to take a critical stand on the DREAM Act. We need it to pass soon. We can’t just keep telling little children and telling our youth and telling each other that, you know, it’s next year. And no, it’s not next year, it’s this year. And he has to take a stand now. It’s out of the question that he can just put everybody’s dreams on hold like it’s nothing. So we want him to take a stand clearly, and we’re giving him a deadline: this Thursday by 12:00.”