February 14, 2018 | UHCL Staff
The legal limbo of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, is one of the hottest hot-button topics in Washington, D.C., and in American media. University of Houston-Clear Lake brought the conversation home in a public discussion with a panel of affected immigrants.
President Barack Obama’s executive order allowed some undocumented young adults who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation. DACA status also allowed recipients to work legally in the U.S. and to attend college at their own expense. President Donald Trump reversed the executive action and pushed a divided Congress to decide the issue. Meanwhile, the future of more than 800,000 DACA recipients, or Dreamers, remains uncertain.
In early February UH-Clear Lake’s Continuing Education office of the College of Human Sciences and Humanities presented a DACA panel discussion moderated by Assistant Professor of Social Work Roberta Leal. The discussion highlighted the immigration stories of four undocumented Clear Lake and Houston area residents and explored questions and misconceptions related to undocumented immigrants.
“I brought together a local panel made up of people from this area with the goal of providing information to the community and offering the opportunity to ask questions about immigration and mixed-status families,” said Leal. “People have a lot of questions like, ‘How did you get here? Why aren’t you documented?’ This was a chance to open that dialogue and learn about our own neighbors.”
Leal, who was born and raised in Texas by a mixed-status family, said that her relatives consisted of undocumented migrant workers, legal permanent residents, and American citizens. “My status as a U.S. citizen afforded me opportunities my cousins didn’t have,” she said. “Circumstances are not the same for everyone. There are many unique cases that don’t fit the path to citizenship, and attorneys often aren’t sure how to handle them.”
Leal said the objective of the panel discussion was to dispel misconceptions about undocumented immigrants and to address commonly held stereotypes. “Many people believe that the undocumented immigrants that live in our communities do not speak English,” she said. “Statistics show that 60 percent of the Latino community in the U.S. speaks English. Demographics are shifting and growing. Also, while 50 percent of the construction labor force is undocumented, does not mean all Hispanics are laborers. Houston has a strong Hispanic business presence and Latinos are in leadership positions in their respective professions.”
Leal pointed out that all four members of the panel discussion – Mirla Lopez, volunteer family life coordinator for United We Dream; Juan Cervantes, a UHCL student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences; Jessica Rangel, founder of Eyes of a Dreamer, and Cesar Espinosa, executive director of Fiel Houston – are college-educated English speakers, despite their undocumented status. “Juan is a DACA student who migrated to the U.S. as a 1-year-old. He applied and submitted his paperwork to obtain DACA status, but the law changed before it was approved and now he’s living in limbo,” she said.
Media and political attention has focused on undocumented immigrants who commit heinous crimes while in the U.S. “This is true, these things do happen,” Leal said. “But statistically, the undocumented have the lowest crime rate, which debunks that stereotype.”
Reports by the New York Times, NBC News and other major news outlets say that there is no evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes, and that connecting illegal immigration to the rate of violent crimes is unwarranted.
“The path to citizenship requires a clean record, and people are frightened of even a minor traffic infraction. The undocumented are extra careful. The rhetoric we hear in the media does not represent the full picture of life as an undocumented immigrant,” Leal said. “Everyone is always trying to stay in compliance with local and federal laws, even when the laws or policies keep changing.”
Another widely held myth about immigrants, said Leal, is that they receive public assistance such as food stamps or funds for housing. “They are not eligible for government aid, so they’re not receiving any of that money,” Leal said. “And if an undocumented student is in higher ed, they’re paying for it themselves or with a private scholarship. A few states have a financial aid resource for undocumented students, but in most states, they do not qualify for any financial aid.”
She explained that in Texas, undocumented students may receive in-state tuition status instead of much higher international student tuition status because they can provide documentation of Texas residency. “They’re allowed to petition for in-state residency status, and this is one of the few states that has a small financial aid resource, Texas Application for State Financial Aid, or undocumented students who are Texas residents who cannot apply for federal financial aid , but it isn’t much and it goes very quickly,” she said.
If undocumented immigrants are deported, said Leal, Texas’ economy will likely be disproportionately impacted. “We have more immigrants than any other state, besides New York and California ,” she said. “They’re an integral part of our economy. There’s a reason why Texas’ economy always seems to be doing better than many other states in the country, even if the economy is doing badly as a whole.”
Leal said she believed the panelists successfully delivered the primary takeaway messages. “Not every case is the same,” she said. “DACA is work authorization, not a pathway to citizenship. There are undocumented immigrants here who have no options at all to find a pathway to citizenship. And there are many who were brought here as children but don’t qualify for DACA because they’ve aged out. It’s an eye-opening discussion that is important to have in our community.”
