AIM played a key role in passing the Maryland DREAM Act, which has opened the door to a college education for thousands of students in Maryland since 2012.

In 2010, a series of listening sessions revealed that youth inside AIM member institutions who were born outside the United States were choosing to drop out of high school when they realized they couldn’t pursue higher education. Undocumented students were treated by most colleges, including community colleges, as international students, and typically charged three to four times the amount of in-state residents.

After significant education and organizing in our congregations, AIM voted to support the Maryland DREAM Act, which would allow any high school graduate who had completed three years of Maryland high school to attend public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates.

AIM leaders, along with leaders from PATH (People Acting Together in Howard) and BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development), organized a 750-person action with Governor O’Malley, asking him to support the DREAM Act in the upcoming legislative session.

Students testified powerfully about their desire to complete their education and contribute to the country they knew as home. They repeatedly came to Annapolis with AIM to speak with their legislators in support of the bill. Clergy played an important role in convincing Senators and Delegates to support the bill, connecting it to the history of unequal access to education for Black students that legally existed in Maryland until 1958.

In March of 2011, the Maryland General Assembly passed the DREAM Act. However, opponents of the law gathered signatures to put the law up to a referendum in the 2012 election.

Through an internal and external power analysis, AIM members determined they would need a broader base to take on a statewide effort to move the DREAM Act into state law. AIM leaders built relationships with PATH, BUILD, the Episcopal Archdiocese, the Methodist Conference, CASA de Maryland and Maryland Catholic Conference to take on one of the largest grassroots voter efforts for the DREAM Act in history. 

AIM and our sister organizations trained over 1,000 clergy and lay leaders to be “DREAM Ambassadors” who held over 250 DREAM events throughout the state. These ambassadors spoke to tens of thousands of voters, educating them about the DRAM Act and getting them to commit to vote for it on the ballot. 

On October 27, 2012, over 200 AIM leaders and allies marched from Harvest Intercontinental Church (then known as Bethel World Outreach Center) to the Silver Spring Civic Building in support of the DREAM Act. They chanted, “We shall vote for 4!”, referring to Question 4 on the ballot referendum.