Archives

Migrant students still pursue American dream

TEMPE — Diego Medina found himself studying for one of the toughest semesters in nursing school yet.

“I knew it would be hard, but never thought the stress would be like a shot of adrenaline,” Medina says.

Medina, a nursing junior at ASU, was raised in Phoenix since the age of 8, when his parents brought him with them from Mexico. He went through the Arizona K-12 educational system and graduated high school with a 3.5 grade point average.

Medina was admitted into Arizona State University before he graduated from high school and was awarded a full ride scholarship to ASU along with a $500 scholarship from the Phoenix Union High School District.

But after November 2006, undocumented students like Medina were denied financial aid. That’s when voters passed Proposition 300, which restricts access to all public monies for undocumented aliens to continue their college education.

At Arizona State University alone, more than 200 students who were unable to show documentation proving legal residency in Arizona dropped out without the assistance of financial aid.

Prior to the passage of Prop. 300, undocumented students in the state of Arizona did not have access to federal financial aid. Prop. 300 further restricted accesses to state monies, such as merit-based scholarships and discounted in-state tuition.

Medina’s immigration status had never been thought of as more than an inconvenience on his daily life.

“Your immigration status wasn’t something that just came up during lunch hour,” he jokes.

Students like Medina were left without funds substantial enough to cover the $12,000 tuition difference between in-state to out-of-state status.

“I thought to myself,  ‘my salary is nowhere close to enough to pay for tuition as a full-time student,’ so I just decided I would have no choice but to take once class per semester,” Medina says.

His dreams of becoming a dentist and making his parents proud soon became blurred in the light of the controversial referendum.

“I didn’t think the law would actually pass,” Medina says. “I thought this was only going to be a scare to the state for more rigid regulations in the system, but I never really thought it would go through until it did.”

In 2007, after the law was enacted activists who opposed the law created a program to help those students now illegible for scholarships they previously held. The new scholarship for undocumented students was called the Sunburst Scholarship.

The Sunburst Scholarship helped the approximately 215 students through private donations. Nevertheless, ASU began receiving negative publicity due to the fact that some of the private donors were university staff.

Hispanic Research Center director Gary Keller has long committed to advance the opportunities for Hispanic students with scholarship search engines and projects like Project 1000, geared to help underrepresented students into graduate programs. Keller says he was left unable to assist undocumented students due to the state funding received for such programs.

Karen Van Hooft, spokesperson for National Organization of Women says, “Students who have succeeded academically and qualify to attend an institution of higher education should be assisted in this endeavor, not punished for their immigration status.”

Van Hooft, who is also the editor-in-chief at the Bilingual Review Press at ASU, was deeply troubled by the law’s affects. She had trouble finding the words to describe her feelings of what it was like to refuse a student the chance to work for the Hispanic Research Center as a result of his immigration status.

ASU discontinued the scholarship because of numerous complaints and opposition of the new Sunburst Scholarship.

Chicanos Por La Causa, a nonprofit geared toward helping Latinos developed a fund for the students.

It the American Dream Fund shortly after ASU shut down the Sunburst Scholarship.

The goal was to raise $7.5 million in scholarship funds to support the American Dream Fund students over the next two years.

Students supported by the American Dream Fund went out to their communities and spread the word in hopes of garnering donations. Medina and other students participated in radio-thons and talk-a-thons across various media outlets in search of businesses and corporations willing to donate.

The American Dream Fund has been helping about 215 undocumented students at ASU continue with their education since fall of 2007.

The Victoria Foundation oversees the application process for the American Dream Fund. Maurina Moxham, assistant to the foundation presidents, says she hopes the foundation is able to keep helping these ASU students with the costs needed to better themselves and become well-respected members of society.

Although the current relief for these undocumented students is present, the law is not going away any time soon and new laws are needed to address the gaps left for future undocumented students who are approaching the college age.

And there are many of them. About 65,000 undocumented children who have lived in the United States or five years or longer graduate from high school each year, according to a report from The Urban Institute.

Advocates of laws to solve the ongoing issue of immigrant children in the United States are anticipating the return of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act into the floor of Congress.

The DREAM Act would provide 360,000 undocumented high-school graduates with a legal means to work. To qualify under the DREAM Act, a student must have been brought into the U.S. more than five years ago when he or she was 15 years old or younger and must be able to demonstrate good moral character.

Support for the DREAM Act has increased since its introduction in 2001. In 2007, the DREAM Act was included in the comprehensive immigration legislative in the U.S. Senate that failed to pass in the spring.

However, the DREAM Act continues to attract support and has a strong backing of the House and the Senate leadership. It is currently being revised and rewritten for consideration in Congress in 2009.

Meanwhile, community efforts to support undocumented students is growing. Various students and activist groups have created websites and community groups across the country but unless reforms for immigrants, such as the DREAM Act, are passed, scholarship money will keep decreasing in availability.

Medina says he can only hope and keep studying for his current classes because, like many of his newly found friends in situations like his, he may or may not have the means necessary to keep going another semester.

“I believe in Arizona,” Medina says. “And I just want people to inform themselves well in what they’re voting for because you never know who will be affected.”

= = =

>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

ASU housing police. Pull over.

TEMPE — Arizona State University will start enforcing a new policy next fall that forces freshman students to live on-campus during their first year or else file an application for an exemption.

News that ASU will start policing campus living situations follows other headlines that show state universities shedding jobs and raising fees past the $6,000 mark next fall to cover expenses.

University Housing associate Vice President Michael Coakley said in a prepared statement that there are circumstances that will allow students to be exempt from this policy. An in-state student living with a parent or legal guardian is an automatic exception. Other students may be exempt if they are over 21 years of age, married or have extreme financial problems or medical conditions.

“Each exemption request will be handled on a case-by-case basis to ensure the best decision possible to achieve academic and personal success for the student,” Coakley says.

Michelle Gutierrez, a Residence Hall Association spokeswoman, says she is concerned there will be a long list of exemption applications.

“In my opinion, students should not have to apply to live off-campus at a public university,” Gutierrez says. “Rather, they should have the opportunity to apply to live on campus.”

She says this new policy could force some students to pay thousands of dollars to live on campus and buy a meal plan from Aramark, the university’s food provider.

Incoming ASU freshman Kara Martin says the on-campus housing rule is a good policy to enforce because it helps new students get used to the ASU campus and provides a safe way for them to live on their own for the first time.

Her mother, Sharon Martin, says that it should be up to the parents and students to decide where students live.

An Arizona resident living in the Palo Verde dormitory with the cheapest meal plan is paying an estimated $8,238 per semester for all ASU fees including tuition, according to ASU’s website. An out of state resident living under the same conditions pays an estimated $14,382 per semester for all fees including tuition. The newer Hassayampa dorm cost $700 more.

“Similar to the meal plan exemption process,” Gutierrez says, “students can find themselves stuck with a financial burden because they missed an application deadline or didn’t have a ‘good enough reason’ to be exempt from a meal plan as determined by the Aramark board.”

Economics sophmore Bryan Tharalson says he receives thousands of dollars in loans per semester from Free Application for Federal Student Aid. After paying his ASU fees, he says he only has a little bit of money left to cover rent at his off-campus apartment. He still spends money from his pocket to live on his own, and he said it would have cost him a lot more if he would have had to live on campus his freshman year.

“It adds up to thousands of dollars. If you live on campus, you have to have a meal plan, which costs more and a parking pass costs more too,” Tharalson says.

Gutierrez says there are currently about 5,000 students living on ASU’s Tempe campus in housing provided by Residential Life.

“With the addition of 1,700 additional bed spaces when the new Barrett Honors College residential facility opens in the fall of 2009,” Coakley says. “ASU will have the capacity to house all first-year students.”

Coakley said that freshmen who live on campus are more likely to graduate by living in residential halls. It also helps students become more aware and involved in the ASU community. National studies have shown that the retention rate for students who live in on-campus housing for at least one year is 20 percent higher than that of students living off-campus.

This decision is also an economic one since students who drop out are obviously not paying tuition. Coakley says this helps improve academics at the university.

“ASU is committed to ensuring the academic and personal success of our students and as such believes it is imperative for students to reside in campus housing for at least their freshman year,” he says.

= = =

>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Verbal jabs fly at ‘immigration solutions’ forum

PHOENIX — Audience members at an “Immigration Solutions Forum” held at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication found that their keynote event was a little short on, well, solutions.

The forum was the first sponsored by Voices for Civil Dialogue, a 5-month-old initiative that aims to address complex public policy issues locally through guided “dialogue and deliberation.”

The project is the brainchild of former Congressional candidate Annie Lloyd, who said the purpose of the forum was to “look for a common ground” and to “gain insight, understanding, and to learn together.”

The problem was not a shortage of citizens looking for insight. Thirty minutes before the forum began, the lecture hall buzzed steadily as a patchwork crowd of teachers, teachers, political interns, students, and neighbors assembled and quickly filled the empty seats.

Mesa resident Jerry Heikens said he was most interested in the humanitarian aspect of the immigration situation. He hoped the forum addressed issues like sex trafficking across the border.

Carmen Mercer, vice president for volunteer border patrol group Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, was also looking for answers about physical and sexual abuse, and said she “seconded” Heikens’ call for education “on both sides of the border.”

José Olagues, a reverend at the Presbytery of Grand Canyon in Phoenix, said he was pushing for reform of an immigration policy system that has been “broken for years.” He wanted discussion of family reunification and “humane treatment” of unauthorized citizens.

Karen Wilson said she came to find out how to develop “unequivocal respect” between those squabbling over approaches to such a contentious issue.

Only Wilson got what she came for.

For the better part of two hours, the seven-member panel skirted proposal of actual solutions in favor of discussing how to come up with a solution.

Panel members Johndennis Govert, Genoveva Acosta-Bueno, and Ron Wakabayashi all underscored the importance of looking at the issue in the context of a larger framework. They highlighted the need to truly understand the forces of globalization and diversity before being able to communicate about immigration effectively.

Deedra Abboud, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation of Arizona, began by defining effective communication itself.

“The biggest misconception about communication is the belief that it actually happens,” she said. “We think because words come out of our mouths it means that we’ve communicated. But communication is also listening, responding, validating.”

Abboud also warned against the danger of acting based on assumptions, including those that stem from racial or ethnic stereotypes.

“Look at me,” she said, “I’m Muslim, I’ve had many people tell me to ‘go back where I came from.’ And I’m from Arkansas! Misinformation doesn’t help anyone.”

Sheridan Bailey, founder of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, said he believes such a tendency to pigeonhole originates at a very primitive level of human nature. When we’re responding to other cultures, he said, “our physical constitution automatically reacts to things that are different as a threat.”

This tendency can greatly hinder decision-making in regard to immigration, he said, when the mere idea of undocumented immigrants having a “place at the table” in negotiation “enflames those who are threatened by the exaggeration of a ‘cultural invasion.’”

Jean Tennyson, president of Navigating Our Future (NOF), agreed. “Humans are wired for survival,” she said. “When we feel we or those we love are threatened, we fight back.”

But Tennyson did not see this as an excuse to exclude immigrants in constructive dialogue. Rather, she emphasized overcoming such instinctive resistance and making sure all “stakeholders” are represented.

Julie Erfle said she became one such stakeholder in the immigration issue “suddenly” and “not by choice.” Erfle began actively working with politicians, law enforcement, and church leaders after her husband, Phoenix police Officer Nick Erfle, was shot and killed last September by an undocumented immigrant.

In discussing her work, she was the only panel member who ventured into a projected solution, albeit briefly.

“When you talk to law enforcement, they aren’t looking for amnesty,” she said. “What they’re talking about is legalization. People pay upwards of $3,000 to coyotes,” she said, referring to individuals specializing in smuggling people across the border. “Many law enforcement officials have suggested that, instead of paying $3,000 to a coyote, the federal government take that $3,000 and use it to implement a guest worker plan so people can come over legally to work.”

The crowd quickly came unraveled at Erfle’s suggestion.

“Whether you call it legalization, amnesty, it’s the same thing, and $3,000 won’t help unless there is enforcement on both sides,” said a woman in the audience who introduced herself as Sandy.

Her voice rising, she said she was frustrated with a nation who seemed to ignore the fact that undocumented immigrants are a “total Pandora’s box.”

As Sandy began attacking the panel for doing the same, moderators abruptly cut her off, reminding her that the purpose of the dialogue was to respectfully explore the decision-making process, not fight about specific past or future policy decisions.

That didn’t stop Heikens from standing up and bluntly asking if the issues he cared about – coyote exploitation of immigrants, slavery, and human trafficking – would actually be addressed.

They were not. The question-and-answer session ended with hands still in the air and an almost palpable tension.

After the session, most audience members lingered, forming small groups to discuss their views – views they felt had largely been ignored. But Annie Lloyd, who planned the event and handpicked the panelists, was not upset.

“Tonight was not about solutions, it was about a beginning,” she said. The goal was to “address how to create opportunities for expanding civic engagement,” and the fact that panelists’ comments got the audience thinking and questioning meant the forum was a success, even if those questions went unanswered, she said.