Undocumented and in College Without DACA: The Cost of Being Left Out

"It's really frustrating to be in these spaces that are supposed to be for us and [feel excluded]."

Illustration by Marly Gallardo

This week we are running the first of three parts of a conversation on La Cuenta exploring the experiences and future prospects of undocumented college students without DACA. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program remains the only policy attempt to provide some sense of relief to the undocumented community.¹ Two sisters, both undocumented without DACA and graduating in 2023, discuss how lack of action and being undocumented has affected their college journey and influence their future prospects.

DACA was enacted in 2012 as a means to provide temporary and conditional relief for immigrants that were brought to the U.S. as children. Continuous attacks have extinguished any hope of expanding the program, placed the lives of about 700,000 current beneficiaries in limbo, and adverted focus from those that never qualified for the program to begin with. Today, it has been estimated that 620,000 K-12 students in the United States are undocumented. Recent decision on DACA now means that first-time requests from undocumented students can no longer be processed, even if they are eligible for DACA. Nearly 550,000 K-12 undocumented students would never be eligible to request DACA under current rules.

DACA has provided considerable relief for undocumented students pursuing higher education. Students with DACA are provided with a social security number and a workers permit which alleviates many of the economic, social, and institutional challenges while pursuing an education and career. As of 2021, undocumented students represent one out of every 50 students enrolled in postsecondary education in the United States. For those without DACA protections, uncertainty fuels anxiety about their future prospects.

In this installment, Lucia and Alicia (pseudonyms provided to protect the identities of our collaborators) discuss their frustrations with the lack of visibility and opportunities for undocumented students without DACA in academic institutions.

Lucia: How has being undocumented affected you as a student?

Alicia: I went to a high school that didn't have much experience with undocumented students. I learned my senior year of high school about the limitations that come with being undocumented and wanting to pursue higher education. A lot of the counselors did not really know how to handle it. Most of them actually did the bare minimum, now that I think about it.

I had this big dream of going to university, I did not want to go to community college. And I was very stubborn in my ways. One day my mom randomly took me to a community college because she went to check out some classes. When I went there, we were talking to a student advisor. She ended up telling us a little bit about her background and she told me that she was undocumented and that's when me and her started talking more about how I didn’t know what I was going to do with school. And then she told me to enroll there. There was a really good undocumented program there. I didn't have any other options. I thought I could keep struggling, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with university, or I could just go to community college, and figure it out later.

I had limited time. I believe this was around the end of my senior year. So I needed to make a decision of what was I going to do.

Lucia: I remember during this time, you had gotten accepted to multiple Cal States, but we also found out we were ineligible for FAFSA and California didn't offer state aid for undocumented students then. A lot has changed since.

Alicia: I graduated high school in 2010, so a lot of things were new.

Lucia: Yeah. DACA wasn't even a thing then.

Alicia: DACA was just being introduced. Sadly, we did not end up getting DACA. So that was another struggle that we dealt with. Not only being undocumented but not having any resources.

Lucia: Yeah, oh my god. I remember when DACA was in the news, we would watch them with our parents. When the requirements came out we realized that we didn’t qualify because we didn’t come to the U.S. before 2007. We missed it by a year, that was very disheartening. I'm just thinking back to the moment, how depressing and angry I felt that they had that time requirement, because we met all the other requirements. It was just that time requirement.

We missed [DACA] by a year, that was very disheartening. I'm just thinking back to how depressing and angry I felt.

Alicia: You saw me, I went to a corner of the room to cry. I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I was struggling a lot. I still want to go to that corner because I'm still struggling. But being in community really helped me deal with my situation then.

They had a “Dream Center” and I was very involved with them. But I noticed a lot of people there had DACA and the center would promote opportunities for people with DACA. It was something I kept noticing. We were all... sometimes categories, you have DACA people and then you have people without DACA.

Lucia: I think since DACA became a thing, all the conversations about being undocumented surround DACA. And for me it's really frustrating because I don't have DACA, so it's kind of annoying to be in these spaces that are supposed to be for us and just-

Alicia: We feel excluded. It's like, we're also here, hello! I felt that a lot when I was in the Dream Center, it was supposed to be for all of us. They were giving a lot of opportunities for people with DACA, it felt like they started forgetting about us. And it would make me sad. I was like, yeah, apparently there's so many opportunities but I can't even get those opportunities. I wanted people to hear my part of the story. That was my main reason of being there. Sadly I was really, really struggling that year. It was 2016 when Donald Trump was running for office. I had to put aside my desire to speak up because we were under threat.

Lucia: When I was a senior in high school, Trump was already president, and I got into some big name schools. Being one of the first students in my school to do so, my counselors wanted to get me in contact with some newspapers, they wanted people to see my story. I was so scared. I told them I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to be on TV. You see these segments on TV when somebody that's really struggled in a minority community “makes it out.” You see these stories on newspapers. My counselors wanted to do something like that for me, and I had to tell them no. I was scared that my name would be out there, that my face would be out there, that somebody might see it and have bad intentions. And I still feel that anxiety to this day. It carries over to other sectors in my life too. It always comes back to this fear of being seen and having no protection.

Propina

Keeping the propina short this week, until next year!

We are so excited about the long inventory of costs and updates and possibilities lined up next year. What would you like to see on La Cuenta next year?

1. For additional information about the DACA program and recent updates, check out this article: What Is DACA? Everything You Need to Know.