Tag: Alex

Alex immigrated to the U.S. as a toddler and has long felt haunted by his undocumented status.

In 2017, when he turned 15, he was finally old enough to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only for it to slip from his grasp right before he started the paperwork, when it was rescinded by the Trump administration.

Then, in 2020, Alex was set to graduate at the top of his class and had racked up a slew of college acceptances, including a full ride to Harvard University. He ultimately declined because of his status, worried about travel restrictions. Instead, he enrolled in a nearby University of California campus.

“It was almost like the system was taunting me,” said Alex, who is now a Cal State University graduate student and chose to use his middle name for fear of being targeted by immigration authorities. “No matter how you excel, the system always comes back to haunt you, to remind you that you did all of that, and yet you really don’t have a choice.”

A promise of work authorization and deportation protection pulled a generation of undocumented youth out of the shadows when DACA first went into effect in 2012. Yet, hundreds of thousands of today’s students like Alex are largely left out because of the ongoing legal battle that has largely frozen applications since 2017.

These students’ lives are further upended by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy this year. DACA recipients and international students have been targeted, which has cast a cloud over higher education attainment for undocumented youth with even less protections.

Gaby Pacheco, who was undocumented while in high school and helped spearhead organizing efforts that led to DACA in the 2000s, said the current undocumented youth are “experiencing the same kind of heartbreaks” and limitations that her generation did.

“It is keeping people chained and, in a sense, locking up their potential and their dreams,” said Pacheco, who serves as president and chief executive of TheDream.US, a scholarship program. Among the most prominent barriers are being barred from federal aid, certain scholarships and work opportunities, she said.

Many of these concerns aren’t new, but “they feel so much bigger and closer than they ever have before” because of the hostile immigration strategy and rhetoric, said Corinne Kentor, a senior manager of research and policy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

Undocumented youth have long been at the center of the country’s immigration debate. What has resulted is a web of shaky piecemeal legislation determining their status, which is being challenged nationwide.

DACA survived President Trump’s 2017 legal challenge when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that his administration didn’t take the proper steps to end the program.

This year, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would uphold DACA nationwide but remove work authorization for recipients residing in Texas. Protections would stay the same in all other states, and applications could potentially reopen. The ruling is pending a decision by a judge in the lower courts on how its implementation will work.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), reintroduced the Dream Act in early December, the most recent attempt of many over the last two decades to provide young immigrants a path to citizenship.

The current Trump administration is attempting to further close the door by suing California in November, alleging that the state’s decades-long offering of in-state tuition to undocumented students is unlawful. The action follows similar legal steps taken by the federal government to end tuition equity laws in states across the country.

“I feel like my family and I have been tossed into a video game,” Alex said. “Like the console gets turned on every morning, you know, and it’s a challenge and it’s a game and I’ve got to survive.”

Who are today’s undocumented students?

There hasn’t yet been a noticeable decline in the 80,000 undocumented students enrolled in the state.

Undocumented students can apply for state financial aid through the California Dream Act, but applications have dropped by 15% this academic year, with just over 32,000 applications submitted. Applications have steadily declined since 2018.

Advocates warn that this drop is a result of DACA’s legal challenges and young people being increasingly nervous about sharing their personal information with government-run programs.

More than half a million undocumented people are enrolled in higher education, but less than 30% of them qualify for DACA, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Most current high school students were born after 2007 and are automatically aged out of the program.

The average age of the more than 500,000 active DACA recipients is 31, with nearly 90% being older than 26. The population has also shrunk, down from its peak of more than 700,000 recipients, with some adjusting their status through marriage or children, said Javier Carbajal-Ramos, a coordinator for the Dream Resource Center at Los Angeles Valley College.

“We call them the original undocumented students,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They’re people that really had an opportunity and they most likely took it. But then, the system changed.”

Alex, who was brought to the country by his mother from El Salvador in the early 2000s, couldn’t qualify for DACA because he was five years shy of the minimum age to apply.

“I grew up feeling silenced, and then there was this period of time where I felt like I could speak and I could take back my voice. … Now, I feel like I’ve been shut up,” Alex said. “My story is being determined by everybody else except myself. My past, my present and my future are all being negotiated by people who legitimately don’t see humanity in me.”

Higher education is a gamble

Attending college is a risk for undocumented students. Many opt to go straight into the workforce instead, a choice that Alex said “is pretty clear for most” of his peers.

Those who do take that gamble are often committed to the importance of education, said Iliana Perez, a former DACA recipient and the executive director of Immigrants Rising. Many immigrant families, like Alex’s, are initially drawn to the U.S. with aspirations for education access and social mobility.

“My mom’s biggest mistake has always been thinking that there were going to be people on this side of the border who believed in her child just as much as she does,” Alex said. “They’ve done all that they can to continue to believe for me and for themselves that something has to work.”

School has always felt like a “veil of protection” for Alex. A fear of entering the workforce was one factor that motivated him to continue in academia.

Often, an education can also afford students more leverage in legal battles and allow them to pursue work opportunities abroad or paths such as self-employment and entrepreneurship, Perez said.

Many schools now offer support services and fellowships that can provide financial compensation in the form of stipends, largely due to the organizing efforts of previous generations of undocumented students, Carbajal-Ramos said.

One undocumented college senior worked at a summer program for her Cal State University campus after her first year because it was paid through a stipend. A yearlong academic position was also available but paid an hourly wage, meaning she was not eligible.

The department leaders, however, were committed to offering her the position and paid her through a scholarship instead, she said, which allowed her to generate income while in school.

“It wasn’t something that I asked for. They did it themselves. For that, I’m really, really grateful,” said the senior, who requested The Times not use her name because she doesn’t have legal status. “It was surprising seeing a group of people that really wanted to help me out.”

Colleges and universities across the country also have established dream resource centers, which provide services, grants and support to immigrant students. There are 161 centers at campuses across the state, including nearly all community colleges and every Cal State and UC campus; 14 private universities also have dream centers in California.

Carbajal-Ramos, who is the regional representative for centers across the Los Angeles area, said it’s important to meet students where they are and not shy away from the precarious realities they live in. He serves at least 1,000 undocumented students in his role as a coordinator at Los Angeles Valley College.

“When somebody really tells you that you can’t, you either give up or you fight, right? And we came here because of the fight,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They have the ganas. They have the drive. It’s my responsibility to keep it that way.”

Alex, who is now only months away from finishing his master’s degree, is hoping to enroll in a PhD program next fall. The applications often require he plan out what the next five years of his academic journey could look like, a task that has proved exceptionally difficult.

“I really can’t think about my life for the next five years,” he said. “I can’t even think about my life tonight. The drive home scares me. Coming to campus scares me. Walking from my car terrifies me. I live my life between breaths.”