Dear Friends,
This week’s evidence involves students who may be most severely affected by the recent election- students raised here but lacking legal immigration status. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – the so-called Dreamer Act – allowed more than 800,000 students who grew up in the US but lacked legal status to gain production, allowing education, driver’s licenses, and social security numbers that were essential for legal employment. But DACA stopped admitting new applicants in 2022 due to the failure of Congress to enact a comprehension immigration form, a prospect that now seems very unlikely.
This year there were more than 100,000 high school graduates who, lacking legal status, cannot get a license, a social security number, or a job. They face almost certain deportation, even though many of them speak only English and have been raised as Americans. It is possible that some of them will be able to continue their education through US-based online learning platforms and perhaps even be able to work at jobs that permit distance learning. But for many of them, returning to their country of origin involves the threats of violence and poverty. Many of our clients serve large populations of undocumented families and I hope that we will see innovative ways to maintain contact with these students wherever in the world they happen to be. One student, reported in the New York Times, had the highest Advanced Placement Environmental Science score, a critically needed skill, and will likely be deported to Guatemala.
What can CLS do? We learned a good deal about distance learning during the global pandemic, and it is possible that school districts can provide online lessons for non-resident students. We can also help schools focus their CTE classes on specialties that qualify for H1B visas – that is, visas specifically authorized for high-need skills such as computer science and artificial intelligence.