The MEFA Institute: Supporting Undocumented Students in the College Planning Process

While undocumented students face many barriers to college, it is still possible for them to get a college education. In this webinar, presented by Andrea Keenan, Director of College and Career Counseling at Excel Academy Charter Schools, attendees learn about admissions standards at both public and private universities, leading into a discussion about how to maximize credits and time for DACA and undocumented students through dual-enrollment and concurrent enrollment opportunities across states, high schools, and community colleges. There's also a discussion about financing options for students with different documentation statuses. Download the webinar slides.

Transcript

Equity laws, this huge update coming out of Massachusetts um this is past
recently um and went into effect um a few months ago and things are still
coming out of this um we don't have all of the facts clearly laid out but we know it went through we know it's a
thing um and undocumented students will now be able to receive instate tuition at public campuses this is huge and so
I'll um touch upon this as well this just opens up an incredible Avenue that
we have just never had before in the state um so this is another reason why the tone of these slides um are is a
little bit different this year and I'm really excited about that. So I think to counteract sort of especially the first
two pieces the the uncertainty with financial aid and so many questions
swirling around what that's going to be like and families asking questions
about uh financial aid and FAFSA and all that but also the affirmative
action piece um the counselors are really interested in and of course the tuition Equity. My theory um in this
work as a practitioner is that in order to kind of combat all of that all that
buzz and uncertainty and questions um we need to have an antidote for for that
and be ready to um support our students and so so so many of my presentations in
the past 10 years have focused around reactive support So once you know about
something for a student this is how you might react or once you know that a student um wants to apply to college
these might be the ones that you suggest to them which is great and being reactive is a part of this but um
my my offering for you is that um we need to be proactive and kind of usher
in this new era of just being being open about talking about this population so
much of my work in the last 10 years has been reactive but it's also um been
talking to counselors who are just frankly kind of like scared to talk about this I mean it's it's an identity. Being undocumented is an identity that is invisible but it's really hard because it's tied to legal matters so
that's why people uh trusted adults people that care about their students don't necessarily want to talk about
this openly because they're afraid that they might say something, wrong might harm the student in some way because
this identity is so deeply tied to a legal piece right of their life and so

that sometimes stops us from being really open or tackling this head-on and
I think given what we know now the discourse over the last four or five years it there's just a little bit more

of an openness around this population and so I want to kind of like seize on that and encourage all of us to um use

these three grounding practices that I'm going to present to you today. The first is you're doing it right now basically, is having try at least sharing some resources, or if you have come from a smaller Community a smaller School smaller organization have every counselor teacher ELL, ESL teacher coach

advisor at least familiar with the fact that there are immigrant students
undocumented students within your population even just a general landscape um and then work to know your local

landscape so so much of what I'll offer today um is sort of this
overarching view um macro level in a way but what's go actually on in your town
so for example in my town where I work um and where I spend so much of my time I can tell you that we have some
beautiful families immigrating from Morocco every single week um that we have um a huge uptick in um a Brazilian
population that are coming in with um various different immigration statuses that might be completely

different from what's happening in your towns and so once you kind of have a sense of that overarching landscape going down to

a micro level and really interrogating what you know about your community that's the first step. If you can do that
even just the next week or so just try to get a grasp on like what you've seen the trends that you've heard about in your hyperlocal context that will go a long way. Um my second best practice is that
self-disclosure is important and this is a way that we are proactive nowadays instead of just reactive in order to maximize resources um for your students and time
for your college applicants especially and so what I mean by self-disclosure
is the act of a student coming forth of their own accord and telling
you or anyone in your school that they're undocumented or sharing
details about their immigration status so they are initiating that contact and
once they do that it is a green light for you to then ask follow questions and
help them and have it just be out in the open between you and them self-disclosure I've come to
realize at a practitioner on the ground is at the very core of providing safe

comprehensive support and timely support for our undocumented population and it
it goes it echoes that statement that I was sharing of let's just be open about this you know let's try to
encourage um our communities to not just be so Hush Hush about this um
this community and this population but actually take the lead and saying
6:03
hey like we need to talk about this let's make our community more undocu-friendly and that will therefore send
messages to your students that it's a safe place to self-disclose you don't want to force students to self-disclose
but if they feel it genuinely that this is a safe space they will self-disclose and they'll self-disclose earlier maybe
in ninth grade maybe in 10th Grade and the sooner counselors know about a student situation the more resources
they can pour into that student more targeted resources there's nothing worse than having a February senior finally
self-disclose because at that point you only have a few months left you could have given them so many more resources

you could have potentially even curated their college list in a different way um and so we want earlier self-disclosures
and so don't be afraid to um seek sort of thought partnership and help

help for how you can make your community more undocu-friendly and therefore invite students to self-disclose this is also
so important because even if they're not undocumented some might have a
non-citizen status that is still tricky uh tricky for financial aid tricky for
college applications maybe they have temporary protective status TPS it affords them a social security card but
not it's not the equivalent of like's say a green card of a permanent resident card and so if they're self-disclosing
even though they might not be saying I'm undocumented they might still be giving you information that is going to be so
crucial to helping them plan for their post-secondary life or they might come from a mixed status family which will
impact their financial aid process right so if they're they themselves are citizens but their family is um their Mom
or their Dad, Guardian is undocumented that will also help you help them better
so love self-disclosure and I'll give you some tips for how to make sure that it's done safely um for the students and
then lastly just talking about immigration especially around the college
application process should be something that we're all really open about you know I've kind of touched upon this
feeling um throughout the last like 10 minutes but it really um I cannot
stress enough how important it is to mythbust whenever possible don't stay
silent um but also this is important too no answer is
better than the wrong answer so if a student of yours is finally
self-disclosed and you're helping them thought partner; you're thought partnering with them on how to um craft
their college list or something like that and they ask you a question and you're feeling really open and you're
like this is we're driving this is great they ask you a question that you don't know the answer to I cannot stress the
importance of saying I don't know. You know what I'm on this journey with you
and we'll figure it out I will make sure we get an accurate answer for this accuracy is so important when it comes
to this population it can be the difference between um they're eligible to apply for something versus not being
eligible to apply for something and if you're not sure it's okay to say “no I don't know now but I'll find out the
answer for you” and that's um an opportunity for you to learn and to grow
um you know once you say bye to the student send me an email send colleagues an email try to fact find and then go
back to the student with the correct answer, um that will go so far when it
comes to preserving the trust that students entrust in you when they
self-disclose to you and you want to make sure that you protect that trust and that
relationship. Get ready to get creative and so the more that you learn the more that you talk to your students the more
that you’re game planning with them and you're giving them also the opportunity to view their post-secondary
path as not just a linear thing but as a thing that they can get creative about. Maybe you help them plan out a plan A
this would be my Top Choice plan. My plan B my plan C fact of the matter is
sometimes undocumented students can't get everything they want right away because of their status maybe the
finances really um are not going to be working out for them in initially or maybe their status precludes them from
applying to certain scholarships and so it's important to um have those open
pathways with them of conversation and encourage them to see their future as
full of possibility but also a future that they have to map out a little bit more carefully and more creatively than
their documented peers. I'm going to pause right there and just have I don't know just give
people like a moment to just like soak that all in three grounding best practices I'm going to review each one
in a little bit more detail in the rest of the presentation but just again want to remind you to put questions in
the chat just anything that's coming to mind there's you know even or even just an observation a comment I'll be um I
and Sean will be checking those throughout the presentation um to make sure that we get some of your voices in
here as well um and I don't see any questions yet um but thank you all for
hanging in with me and and let's go let's start. So I just want to again
echo we want safe we want productive uh and we want rich planning when it comes
to this population they need to know that their process might look a little different but that there's still so much
out there for them they need to know that and sometimes as a counselor you might be the only
person in a position to tell them that um there's a lot of there are a lot of myths out there in terms of what
undocument students can or can't do and some of those myths sometimes are perpetuated by their communities their
own communities their own neighborhoods their own families um I I have a family
member for example who has a complex immigration status and sometimes
I hear that family member saying oh I can't do that I'm undocumented or I can't do that I and I have to kind of
step in with love with care and say no you can you can do that you can do this you should have to get creative and
so we we want safety we want productivity we want a creative post-secondary plan but the only things,
not the only things, but the two major things that lead to that is student self-disclosure and a counselor baseline
knowledge and mythbusting so you are all on your way and you're probably all doing this already so if we want to deep
dive a little bit into number one um you know having yourselves your

your immediate colleagues anyone that you know that interacts with this population at your school or your organization to
to just have more awareness it definitely starts with you I mean you're here you're putting in the work. Model
speaking about immigration that will help your students own their story and their
Voice. Their story is their superpower um no that sounds a little corny but it really is. But on that vein
on that note don't necessarily encourage them to write about this in their college essays if they're not ready
To. I have, for example, I have my own immigration story that goes back to the
early 90s and you might think that as someone who is in their 30s I might be
ready to talk about every part of my story um and I'm not. There are things that are painful there are things that
have been hard not everyone's at the same point to own their story and that's
me in my 30s with lots more experiences under my belt and I can only
imagine or actually I know what 15 16 17 18-year-old might be thinking when they
see the Common App prompts and they might feel forced to write about something hard that has happened in
their past. And for many undocumented students especially their journeys of
coming over here may have been really difficult. They may have been scary they may have even been violent they may have
been joyful maybe they just got on a plane and got here. You don't know you don't want to assume but you can ask
you can say what's coming to mind when you hear this prompt what what are the different stories that you might be able
to tell and if it seems that the student is ready to talk about certain things then
they're lucky to have you as a trusted adult that can help them navigate complex feelings as they're writing
their essays or their supplements. Some might not be ready to or might be almost on the cusp of
being ready to share some of their story or identity if it feels right to them
for some essay prompts um but they might be ready with a little processing um they might want to include some of their
experiences in their application if it's part of the story they want to tell. This
is particularly salient this year with what we know um has sort of come
about with the affirmative action decision. We know now that applications are going to not are not going to ask
directly about um certain aspects of students identities so often times the
essays and other um open ended moments in the application will be where
students uh will showcase um stories that have
impacted them. and so I have heard of counselors being very strategic about
certain aspects of the application. um and we should be um but just handle with
extra care um when it comes to this population. It's not a given that that these are the stories they that they
want to tell .but it is their superpower so you can play a part in helping them unearth some of their
learnings and some of the things that have really touched them throughout their Journeys be it with immigration
but any other aspects of their lives um that's a really valuable thing and they're all like so lucky to have you
all in their lives. So knowing about you know knowing about this population feel free
to share these slides with with folks in your lives . You know this population will
only keep growing um so many of us immigrate here from so many different
Countries. These are figures courtesy of the Pew Center I've been using um
versions of these figures for a little while and I reckon that these are vastly
Underestimated. We've got about 11.2 million undocumented immigrants of all ages living in the US that's probably
very lowballed. 1.1 million undocumented children under the age of 18 living in
the US. Of those 65,000 are graduating high school every year and of those only

about 7 to 13,000 are enrolling in college not saying college is the only
pathway um I work in a department that celebrates all Pathways to your college
trades apprenticeships um direct employment but
if they want to go to college they should be able to go to college right so I'm sure that more than 7 to 13,000
undocumented students out of the 65k want to go to college. Then why are they
not going? And so many things play a role in that misinformation um them not being
encouraged them not having trusted adults that have no knowledge to help them through this. It's a really stark
statistic um you know and it's something that I think we all have a privilege and
a power to be able to shift in our own communities.
um It takes on average 10 to 16 years for a skilled worker to even get on the
pathway to citizenship or become a citizen so what I mean by a skilled worker and I've linked here more
information is someone potentially with an advanced or very um niche degree that
gets brought over to the US to um facilitate a certain initiative here.
They get given um some sort of um provisionary immigration status and then
then maybe eventually they can get on a pathway to citizenship. So these are uh
usually highly educated individuals and for them it even takes 10 to 16 years so
the US as you know has very strict exclusionary immigration uh practices
it's one of the most strict countries in the world. So if it's 10 to 16 years for
on average for skilled worker to even dream of getting on a pathway to citizenship it's going to be so much
Longer, if ever, for anyone else so this is why the push for comprehensive reform
matters at the national and the local level especially. and I think something
that underscores this beautifully is what has recently happened in Massachusetts uh with the tuition Equity
Laws. That has been years in the making by local um organizations Grassroots
Organizers, locally going to the state house asking for signatures using their voices
to make change and even though tuition equity is not comprehensive immigration reform it's something that benefits this
Community. And so I often say to people that I talk to in my community that
really the power to help the power to affect change starts at the local level
it starts at your schools. Are there certain dual enrollment programs that
you can part partner with private schools private colleges for that don't
require social security number for your students to join and to get access to those courses? So there's little things
like that that sometimes it's easy to feel helpless you know I'm just one person I'm in my school, I'm busy which
we all are so busy this is such a busy hectic profession it's such a a great
way to spend our days but they're busy hard days sometimes you don't have the time to
um think about other initiatives but when you do have the time um I encourage
you to think about little ways tiny ways low lift ways maybe at the start that you can um affect change for this
population I mentioned dual enrollment that's an easy one that comes to mind um because most a lot of counselors or
School administrators don't know that they might have the power to advocate for certain dual enrollment programs
that are partnering with private institutions where there won't be there
wouldn't be any Social Security um questions for students or there might be
um funding that you know your school has that and they're trying to allocate it. and you might be at a meeting where
that's being decided you can be the person to say hey what about for this? what about for this population? So we all
have so much power and I'm just grateful that um you all here are interested and and willing to use it. Um I do see
that we have um a question um thank you so much for

asking it this is about four minutes ago so um let's see um and hopefully I can
answer it right now: “so our scholarship program requires students to provide a student aid report what other comparable
documents can we ask of undocumented students we use the FAFSA to verify residency in western Mass and their
expected family contribution to college tuition we prioritize low-income students but we need documentation to
verify income also we don't want to ask for W2s or bank docs any suggestions would be helpful” um that's a really good
question um thank you for asking it. I'm curious and maybe you can um add a
little bit more context you said “our scholarship program” so I'm assuming that you're writing about um being part of a
private scholarship fund that gives students money? And you're thinking about
ways that you can be inclusive and get the information you need from this
population without needing the student aid report am I understanding that correctly? So maybe you can um give me a
little bit more context and I'll get back to your question that's a really good question thank you for asking
It. Um all right so when when thinking about advocating for these students you
know sometimes we use very binary language we say “citizen” we say “undocumented” but there really is a
spectrum of statuses in between and I think that my message my overall message
for for all of you is you don't please don't feel like you have to be an expert in all these statuses um you know I've lived all of
this I've been in this for about a decade now and I still don't know the ins and outs of every status on here but
what's important for you in this moment and on your journeys toward being allies is just
knowing that this texture exists. Knowing
that it isn't just citizen undocumented. There's a whole layer textured ecosystem within that
that our young people are navigating um and if maybe not for themselves, they see
family members navigating they're part of that and it can be very um very scary
it can be overwhelming for them um but you knowing that these things exist will
at least allow you to ask more questions to try to eventually you know help them
them get to whatever path they want to get to. And so you've heard I'm sure of
different US nationals, naturalized citizens, um these are people like me
that immigrate to the US eventually get on a pathway to citizenship and eventually can get a can become a
naturalized citizen that is the hope for many people that immigrate to the US to
get on a pathway that will eventually lead them to become a citizen. That is extremely hard to do with the way our
immigration laws are written and so what ends up happening is people are in this country weaving in and out of being
undocumented or maybe having visas or maybe having different statuses and some of these eventually will lead to
pathways or pathway to citizenship but me many of them do not. You have what's called an I-94 which
is not an actual status but I put it in here because a lot of statuses give out I 94s um arrival departure records and
some of our young people have I 94s as proof of their immigration into the United States and so sometimes if you
ask them hey well are you like once they self-disclose to you you might ask them all right so like do you have any
paperwork do you have any um authorization social security cards I 94s like what what do you have? um I'd
love to know so I can help you um figure out whether you're eligible for fafsa or not so just even having these
terms in your Lexicon will be really I I promise you gamechanging in your
interactions with students then you've got um Asylum as a
status um and diff it's important to differentiate between Asylum granted and
Asylum pending um there are some students that have applied for Asylum or their their families um and them have
Applied, but that's still pending they might have a court date a few years into the future in the meantime they're given
a work authorization, a social security number, but it it they won't know their
asylum is actually granted until that court date you know years into the future. So there is a difference between
Asylum pending /Asylum granted so another example is you don't have to know the intricacies of this exactly but just
knowing it exists if you hear a family tell you oh “we have Asylum” you could say “great, congratulations. Like that's
that's a big thing you probably worked really hard for that. Um has it been granted is it done a done
deal or are you still waiting to have that court date?” and the difference between a yes or no there could be a
difference between them being able to file a FAFSA or not. And we'll get into that a little bit more. Um refugee status we've heard
about that it's similar to asylum, there's just some differences in terms of when they're applying for the status

whether they're in or outside of the United States. um once refugee and asylum
statuses have been granted they get a permanent resident card so that's the
game changer right there right going from having a work authorization which is still great allows you to work and
file taxes in the US upgrading that to a uh Permanent
Resident card or green card is a huge difference um because now having that
green card that permanent resident card now you're able to file a FAFSA now you're able to get federal aid um so
that's that's exciting for families that are on that journey. There's temporary protective status um with this was in
the news a lot uh a few years ago with the Trump Administration. There were some
things with certain TPS statuses being revoked for certain countries this is
the type of status that gets renewed and we'll talk a little bit about this in a future slide.Permanent resident of
course um the green card holders conditional permanent residents there's
also T visas U visas J&F visas you might
hear about. Other temporary visas different action for childhood
arrivals I want to be clear this isn't an actual status it's just an exemption from deportation but it's important
because there are many DACA holders um out and about doing their thing
living their full lives being able to work um file taxes but it's a tough thing to have because they have to renew
it every 2 years and it's not an actual status with a pathway to citizenship it is simply an exemption from deportation
so definitely complex there as well, Family sponsored visas uh violence
against women act self petitioners, that's a type of um process that is very
closely linked to immigration as well, um special immigrant juvenile status and
finally undocumented. So a lot of nuance lot of texture um and we'll get
into some of the nitty-gritty in a little bit um where some of these statuses are
Concerned. Um someone asked if someone had a social security number and work
authorization but is still waiting for permanent residency to process can they fill out of fapa that's a really good
question thank you for asking that the short answer is no they have to have um their permanent resident status approved
for them to be able to fill out a Fafa but that doesn't necessarily mean waiting for the green the actual you
know hard green card to arrive in the mail. What that means is they have to have made it to the end of their process,
been granted that status, have had their Biometrics taken,
so that kind of that F almost final step where you get your photo taken you get things processed you get your
fingerprint fingerprints taken and then you get a notice in the mail and that notice will um be kind of that conformation it's approved this is your USCIS number and your card will be mailed to you momentarily they really
just need that. Um their lawyer can help them confirm or can confirm for them
that their their status has been granted and upon that once they have that confirmation that USCIS number, that gets
uh given to them then they can file a FAFSA. Many families think that they need to wait for the physical card um and
that's just not true, they don't technically need to to wait for the car to arrive there can sometimes be a lag
between when their status gets approved and when they actually get the card mailed to them. I hope that answered your
Question. um and so um someone else asked which statuses on this list are eligible
to fill out a FAFSA thank you for asking that um there are slides that go into
that um so we'll get to that momentarily. I know that that's kind of like once you know about all these statuses then
you're kind of like okay well which one um so we'll we'll get to that thank you all right
so these are kind of the differences between cards so some of these statuses
or situations will um lead to uh people receiving this. which is the permanent
resident card. um this is what many people are after because once you have
this this means you are on a pathway to citizenship right once you have this permanent resident card depending on how
you received it what status you can wait a certain amount of years and then begin
your naturalization process so this is definitely highly coveted um because this will lead to
naturalization so if you have a permanent resident card you can fill out a
FAFSA and I think that gets the question that was asked in the Q&A and that's I think um the simplest way to kind of
think about it at first if you're still kind of getting confused with all the different statuses knowing if a student
has a permanent resident card um is a of kind of an easy first way to kind of
weed out um that initial confusion and can kind of confirm start to confirm
whether the student can fill out a FAFSA a lot of the statuses and processes that we talked about the last slide will um
give the the petitioner this employment authorization card you can see I mean
the the crops are a little different but they're both you know the same size card but you can see that the colors are
oftentimes people get confused they might have a work authorization card which is awesome because they can work
they can file taxes but still not the permanent resident card and so there are some students that have this card
they've been working they've been filing taxes they know their family files taxes and they might assume then that they can
fill out a FAFSA um which they can't um you can also see one of the other
biggest similarities is that they both have USCIS numbers so this is the US citizenship and Immigration Services
Agency sort of way to catalog um all of the immigrants in the United States so
everyone's that's currently um petitioning for immigration statuses
hasn't been naturalized a citizen has a USCIS number so you can see why some
people with a employment authorization card might get confused because the FAFSA um historically has asked for
USCIS number they've called it an a number and so if you know you have this and the fast is asking you for it why
wouldn't you be eligible for it? and so that's sometimes why students need a
little bit of that pre-talk before filling out a FAFSA if you know that they have a status other than us citizen
status um great um does that start to answer the question we're going to get
into it a little bit more um um in a little bit I just want to say a few
words about DACA I don't want to take up too much time here um this was all
the buzz say you know 10 11 years ago when it first became an executive action
in 2012 the pool of DACA recipients is thinning it's just getting smaller and
smaller with every passing year um if you ask me this is a Band-Aid this was
never meant to be a permanent thing but there are still DACA recipients out there
um but what I'm seeing now that you might be feeling now is that they're not our current high school students our
current high school students were too most of them were too young to to fall
into this the DACA um category easily, um
the last DACA student that I had come through my high school office was back
in 20 2018 2019 I haven't seen any DACA students
come through our High School uh counseling office since then I do see a lot of older siblings a lot of older
cousins um parents um with DACA uh that is uh fine you know it's it's still
kicking in certain ways but it's been in the news recently because certain um
circuit courts have ruled that the program might be, might have been illegal
um so just something to know if you do come across anyone with that gut is that initial applications are not currently
being processed so if you're a first-time applicant that um won't be processed by
USCIS um but renewal applications are still a go so that's still being granted
the key here is just to tell students or their family members that they should begin the re-application process um at
least 120 days before their cards expiration um because it does just take
that long to process they're given out in two-year cycles so pretty much you
know a year and a half into having it you kind of have to start renewing it again and my hope is that in the future
you know the more that local um progress is being made for immigration that that
will hopefully trickle up at some point and we are hopefully on a path to
comprehensive immigration reform because DACA is just not enough uh for for it you could see you know you have to
have entered the country before 2007 um born after 1981, undocumented on
June 15, 2012 you know some of our students right now were born you know in 2006 or 2007
so you you can see that it's just not good enough for the current population and the evolution of the
population in the United States. Temporary protective status is another status that we see a lot at my
School,l um it's granted to nationals of countries in crises who are presently in the US um TPS is usually renewed um
every six 12 or 18 months for that designated country, uh usually given to
countries with ongoing armed conflict natural disasters extraordinary temporary
conditions I want to thank MIRA the Massachusetts immigrant and Refugee advocacy Coalition for some of these um
talking points and stats they do a great job of disseminating really great information in the state of
Massachusetts um the thing to know about temporary protective status and DACA is
that they both receive the work uh employment authorization card so the the
blue and red one not the green card and so that's again like kind of a check for
FAFSA um if they have that employment authorization card they're not eligible to apply for FAFSA or to receive title 4
federal funds um to make things more complicated
some of your students might not have a work authorization card yet or might not
have a green card yet they might still be in the process of petitioning for status or renewing a status or applying
for something for the first time but they may have been given on their way into the country I-94 which is the
arrival departure record they used to come um they used to be very commonly
given out in paper form that would be stapled into a person's passport at the
port of entry or the port of arrival um looks a little something like this um
I don't see the these too often anymore for our students but sometimes I see them for for parents, older parents but
you can see that um they're given a stamp and it's all very official and
they're usually given or I usually see written on here some sort of USCIS number um or other details now
they're more so given out um electronically so something to think
about there so if you're asking a student students self disclosed to you and they're saying you know I think you
we have um we're waiting for Asylum or we're doing this and you might ask them
well great do you know if you have an employment authorization card or permanent resident card they say no but
I think I don't know let me ask my family you might say hey like next time your family comes in would would they
mind talking to me I'd love to just ask them a little bit more about this um that way I know exactly how to help you
and if you can get a family on the phone or they come in for family conferences maybe you can ask them hey you know your
student told me this uh thank you for trusting me with this information it's safe with me to mind if I ask you a few
more questions so I could help them apply for college or for financial aid at that point once they say yes of
course it's okay and you might say I heard from the student that the student doesn't have any sort of card,
employment card or permit resident card might you have a I-94 anything stapled
into your passport any other paperwork that you might have and usually you know families know um and might be able to
tell you actually yeah we have an I-94 I can log in and print it out um or actually yeah it's it's in my students
passport um they can bring that in next time so I-94s are little complicated
because it it's just that arrival departure record it's just a record of that happening it's not necessarily an
easy you qualify from financial aid or you don't you have to dig a little deeper and ask them about their actual
status is it Asylum pending is it Asylum granted um so there is a little extra
layer of fact finding if your student or families have I-94s and they don't have cards
yet um just checking the Q&A make
sure there is a pending question there that um I will get to um shortly
hopefully um so just wanted to share some more information I know practitioners um especially for when I
do these webinars for fellow Professionals in the field it's always useful to kind of get a sense of what's
happening in our state um there a lot of immigrants there a lot of us in Massachusetts um 5,600 TPS holders are
essential workers um this was huge um right around the acute phase of covid so
many of our essential workers were TPS holders were here, um because of this
status um the huge case for immigration reform for tuition Equity is the case of
listen immigrants pay taxes especially undocumented immigrants are still contributing to the economy in these
important ways so all really um kind of interesting information to to get a
sense of what's happening in our state um I want to highlight that of all of
the immigrants you know the 1.1 million immigrants you know some of them might have permanent resident cards some of
them have you know the slew of statuses we talked about only about 12,000 people
are eligible for DACA in Massachusetts so I want to like kind of if I may like
push us away from the DACA discourse and more into um the discourse that talks about
the other statuses that talks about tuition Equity that talks about local uh
immigration reform I think sometimes when we hyperfocus on DACA we lose so
much of the the texture the other texture that's that's in here um if you
want more information I linked here um an interesting website that will give you just all more facts more figures if
you're that kind of thinker um what's cool about um what's happening now in
Massachusetts as a result of that um tireless advocacy um on the ground by
many many people people for many many years is that now Massachusetts is among
the states that provide UND documented students in state tuition at public
campuses this is huge and if you weren't aware of this join me in my joy this is
huge it's lifechanging before so if I had done this webinar for you six months ago the
reality six months ago would have been that only students with the employment authorization
card could receive instate tuition at public colleges but now it's open to
any student regardless of that immigration status as long as they have
completed at least three years of High School in Massachusetts and graduate from a Massachusetts high school or
complete the Massachusetts um High School um diploma equivalency
test if you want more information I've linked the Massachusetts higher education um website there um
basically students will need to fill out an application and an affidavit form to
prove to the campuses that they are enrolled in a Massachusetts high school
that they have been enrolled in the Massachusetts high school and an affidavit to say I can't provide you
with a social security card a work permit um and this is me stating that
the application affidavit form we're hearing from the state is going to be the same for all campuses which is a
very welcome update in my mind um so it'll kind of be standardized for all public
campuses um you just have to as a counselor kind of coach students to do this additional thing um in the form of
the affidavit form if they're undocumented um this is huge this is so
big um I was sharing with the MEFA folks earlier before jumping on here that this
is already changing lives at my school um before I could have never well I
could have but it would have it would have been hard to suggest a student enroll at I don't know say Fitchburg
State University as a commuter student or any other of our wonderful State campuses because it for so many families
was just not feasibly possible to pay out a state to it still doesn't um
mean federal student aid it still doesn't mean fully you know all of the
state aid that could be coming through from Massachusetts that's still TBD but it's still a huge step in the
right direction especially for the smaller State schools that have um smaller price tags for certain you know
middle income undocumented families that you know 6-7-8-9K a year could
actually be very doable or potentially again getting creative right potentially
even telling a student like would you consider starting out part-time and maybe only paying for um
half the credits still at the instate tuition rate um could still be a great
way for students to start those families that might not be able to afford um the full-time tuition but it's
still amazing news um let's all share information if you're hearing anything
um new um definitely pass it along here but I'm definitely checking back um
constantly to make sure that I have um the most up to date information to share with my students um this is important to
know about now so you can start prepping undocumented students that want to go to college with this information and and
this can help you craft their college list um but they don't need to fill out
the forms until they plan to commit to the colleges so the the reason we don't
have the application yet or the affidavit form is that it's just not timely yet so when students start
applying start getting accepted start committing to these places that's when you would fill out the application
affidavit form and so it's it's just love it's just great news um just so so so excited
and so this is an old map um that I used to show in these presentations you can
see that Massachusetts was grayed out we just didn't have any state laws
concerning um undocumented students all we had before was just instate tuition for
DACA or TPS students or any author um employment authorization card holders and so now um I can see the national
immigration law center updating this map and turning Massachusetts a shade of
green which is very exciting and I feel like we're finally slowly catching up to what other dark green states have been
um doing for a very long time so our voices matter advocacy matters woohoo
yay wonderful um oh and so I just wanted to click into I don't know I clicked
into um the link here um and you can see the education trust is a great resource
if you want to have more of a comprehensive tool to show you what different states offer um they're
undocumented students um say you have a student that wants to study in Rhode Island has family there might want to
establish residency in another state it's always good to have um access to these to these tools sorry keeps
clicking okay um so questions that you might want to ask yourself um and take
the lead on asking and factoring in your community might be something like what countries are represented in our
school are there countries that um are some of those countries then TPS countries do we do we have a large
population of undocumented students and therefore which colleges around us might
be more undocufriendly which colleges give more Meritage to students who may
not be undocumented but not eligible for title four fafsa of funds um my advice is to
centralize your undocumented student support someone that can coordinate and triage off self-disclosures in your
counseling office so that as you're getting Knowledge from students that they're undocumented you can kind of
huddle your team together try to brainstorm best practices share information in case a counselor was not
able to attend this webinar you can all kind of centralize that support and help the undocumented students in your um in
your counseling office um this is these are just some helpful hopefully helpful links for all

of you to stay informed and just some next steps um for us in Massachusetts
we're lucky enough to have MIRA the Massachusetts immigrant Refugee advocacy Coalition they have a great tool on
their website that allows you to search for trusted legal aid in your
area and they cover all of the different areas of Massachusetts so if you're working with a family that might be
undocumented or might have questions about finding legal aid you know we're not immigration lawyers we're not
immigration agencies at our school but you can always point them to organizations like MIRA that could
potentially help them um get a legal screening going um if they have
questions about what they might be eligible to app apply for um just I always keep that back of mind is you
know my my main job of course is counselor helping them plan for post-secondary life but I can also
suggest that they take these proactive steps um toward potentially discovering
um ways that they can um help their or evolve their immigration status or their
situation I always uh bookmark legal resources like the Catholic legal immigration Network the national
immigration law Center the resource center um they also have access to the red know your rights cards um that you
could print out and have available if you happen to have a larger undocumented population and then these are um number
three just highlights a few immigrant-led organizations and advocacy groups um
it's always I think great when students self-disclose to point them to the source to say this is what other
undocumented people are doing activists are doing this is what allies are doing and make them feel like
they're not isolated um in their story and I think organizations like United We dream do a great job of that so these
are just resources for you feel free to peruse at your leisure um I just want to go into
self-disclosure a little bit because I've been saying that a lot um but I know that sometimes for for
practitioners it can be a little bit confusing um and so I always say please
for if you suspect that a student might be undocumented or have immigration statuses prioritize bringing them in
prioritize building a relationship with them and if you can if your job allows your time allows prioritize having a
family meeting with them um and their close ones um their their families
um because ultimately it's all about trust and we know self-disclosure needs to happen they need to feel safe they
need to feel ready um and we can never ask ask a student or family what their immigration status is I want to be like
so clear about that we can never ask it's illegal for us to do that especially as uh School Employees K
through 12 School Employees but once they tell us great we can take it from
there um if you are in a family meeting if you suspect if you have a good if you're
building a good relationship with a student and they're like hinting at something or maybe not or maybe you just
want to like put it out out there that you are someone they can come to a question I always rely on is hey like is
there anything else you might want to share with me that might allow me to help you in in your process more like anything that's affecting um
that you think might affect your process I’m all ears, like what you tell me is safe with me like I'll you know it's
confidential uh usually if there's something there um some a question like
that might help trigger um a response from students I always tells um practitioners to avoid writing emails
with sensitive information especially before a student or family has given permission to spread the information to
others um at my school sometimes this manifests as a student has told me their
status and maybe they want to speak to a counselor or another practitioner and I
want to refer them over I always want to make sure the student is given me permission to do that and I always face
to face these requests I never email them um especially not with a student name or status in the email and I also
don't keep a written list anywhere of student statuses um that's just I think common sense but sometimes when we're in
the thick of a busy year and we want to remember students and their self-disclosures um we might be tempted
to write a list you know student first name last name status just don't do it
um for their safety and and for everyone's peace of mind um and so
the next few slides I'm not going to go into too much detail but it just offers um suggestions for how
to curate your atmosphere in an authentic way so as to be supportive of
immigration to send visual cues to students that they walk into your office that you are a safe haven for them so
think about all the spaces that you touch your website email communications
don't be afraid to be bold be unafraid be an ally if you can if you feel comfortable um this is really important
because the more that we show our students that we're that safe space the more that they will want to talk to us
um and therefore self-disclosed to us in a safe way um these are just some
beautiful images that I have printed out I have I've put around my office in
inschools does a great job of providing um toolkits for educators I cannot Rave
about them enough this this is the black and white um poster in the middle um and
so even just something like that you know next to your desk or in in the waiting area can go a long way um
especially if you're in a town that might not have a huge undocumented population like at my school for example
we're um a highly immigrant population we're really diverse and and it's kind
of spoken about more but I can imagine some smaller towns that you might only have a handful of students in which case
these initiatives um tend to be really crucial um for them to be able to seek out the help they need so always assess
the situation if you know a student's status or ask yourself do I know the
student status if no then but you suspect something give students chances
to tell you with that question kind of that prompt that I shared with you is there anything else you might want to share with me give them the chance don't
press them too much but you know have it come up kind of come out organically if you do already know their status how
did you find out about their status did they share it with you cool if they did great make sure you get permission from
them before you share their status with others if you say need thought partnership from someone else in your school or
something like that um did you hear about it from others now this is a tricky one because it it touches on that
trust piece um if a student say a student shared with their ninth grade counselor they're undocumented and that
counselor has told you I would hope that that counselor has asked the student hey can I share with your 11th grade
counselor so you don't have to repeat your story and they just know and if the student says yes then the counselor
tells you then you can just be open with the student hey your counselor told me thank you for trusting me with that and
then we move on but if the counselor never asked that student permission and
the counselor told you their status you might want to double check hey is it okay that you told me this can
you just double check with the student uh 9 times out of 10 the student says yes of course but again we want to
protect their information and their
dignity and all of that so feel free to read these slides reach out if you need
any help or thought partnership with anything but I think sometimes presentations like this can focus so
much on the tactical that sometimes we forget the sort of the the emotional piece that that is so deeply embedded in
the tactical so I always want to make space for for these slides in my presentations um here I offer some
advice for how to talk to students when you know the student doesn't qualify for financial aid that can be some of the
toughest conversations I have um I always just make sure the student knows it doesn't mean they don't qualify for
any other aid and I make that super clear to the student um I take the student through my thought process I
think through scenarios with the student um if the student completely undocumented you know you can explain
their options tuition Equity really give them hope for for the future and self-disclosure in the end is so
important also because then you'll know if they are
eligible for federal aid um the list of who is eligible is smaller than who is
ineligible and I know someone in the Q&A asked um this question and I kind of
answered it by saying you know look at the cards is it a perment resident card is it a work authorization but more
so um there's actual statuses that federal student aid um the federal department of
education is very clear about that do qualify and of course the card hack is
kind of just that kind of a hack to kind of give you an opportunity to enter into
that and have a little bit more clarity, but ultimately um always consult those
uh federal student aid documents that actually enumerate all of the statuses that are eligible it's important to know
that many students might actually not be sure of their status which is why once they self-disclose that fact finding
that asking about I-94 or permanent resident card at work authorization can go a long
way once you're sure of what their status is then you can actually compare it with the actual list of who is
eligible for federal financial aid um the federal student aid handbook um you
know is for Federal um sorry for financial aid administrators at colleges
but their volume one chapter 2 actually does a phenomenal job of kind of
highlighting all of the different SES that are eligible um it's a very
clear-cut list the handbook just goes into more detail so if you're a person that likes detail
examples pictures graphics that's for you if you just want the high level stick
stick to these slides so there's basically three categories for who's eligible US citizens or nationals
permanent residents with any of these three um USCIS designations or the
eligible non-citizens category which is a larger category this is where a lot of our students uh kind of fall into the
eligible non-citizen category so it's basically what you see here um persons granted Asylum
refugees um the list goes on it's very very meticulous in in the information
the only Visa that is eligible for federal aid is the t visa um which
happens to be for victims of human trafficking um and you can see here I
kind of put in the little hack these are all permanent resident card holders so you can verify the the status and then
also verify that they have the permanent resident card if those two things check out then you're good to go to file a
FAFSA um so what does this mean for the FAFSA in the CSS profile um bottom line
even with the FAFSA changes and the Fafa simplification Act only students with a social security number May apply so if
the student is the applicant for college then they're then considered the
applicant for FAFSA but they may not file a FAFSA if they're undocumented
because they wouldn't have a Social Security number and they just wouldn't even be able to um to go in and do all
the things um if the student if you've already
decided yes the student can fill out of FAFSA they're eligible cool they can go ahead and do it where it gets tricky for
this population would be for mixed status family so the students eligible they might have a Permanent resident card
they might be a citizen they might be one of the eligible non-citizen of
status is here so that's all great that checks out but what if they're um parents are undocumented in the old FAFSA
the parent would insert all zeros in lieu of the SSN and then print out the signature page with the FAFSA
simplification um there is some kind of good news there that um they
undocumented parents will have a way to um also electronically sign the FAFSA so
it would it won't just be the signature page like it was before but the department of Ed has yet to unveil what
precisely that separate form or process for those parents is going to be um they
have not release that information ahead of the uh December roll out um but I
have caught wind of webinars coming up that um are going to go into detail uh
for this so stay tuned for this um and I'm sure we'll hear more in the next few
weeks this is very very timely stuff um so just let's keep checking back let's
keep sharing information with one another um hopefully the process is easy enough
for um families to be able to do even families that might not speak English or
might um have trouble with technology this is where having a counselor like you might really come in handy you might
be able to help them out with this um additional process if they're undocumented parents for the CSS profile
nothing much has changed here all students May apply for this because again CSS profile is for um
institutional Aid at private colleges um this is actually a place where I suggest
that a lot of undocumented students self-disclose it's a really safe way to self-disclose and be really open with
the colleges that hey I'm applying to your private institution would really love some Merit Aid I'm undocumented I
think you should know this and the way that I encourage my students to do that is by um writing a short brief
informative statement maybe a few sentences in the special circumstances section of the CSS profile which is
toward the end of the application um and like I said this is a safe way to self-disclose I always
encourage my undocumented students to self-disclose to institutions especially
in Massachusetts um as you saw from the map we are becoming a more undocu-friendly state um there shouldn't be any worries
about um private information being shared with ICE or with law enforcement
I know that's a question that I often get from families of like is it safe to tell student um sorry is it safe to tell
colleges that I'm undocumented is it safe to fill out uh the CSS profile and
I always revert back to yes it's safe um and there's a huge reason for that which is um FERPA, which is a federal um sort
of act that protects student information it's permanent it's a federally
recognized thing um in my 11 years as a counselor I have never had a college
um disclose personal identifiable student information to any sort of
immigration agency it just like has never happened um not saying it will never happen but if it did happen it
would be an egregious breach of that FERPA law and it's just like colleges don't want to take that risk it just
it's so safe um so as much as you want to quote me on that when you talk to your families uh please um please
definitely make it clear to them that it is safe for them to self-disclose to colleges I'm going to just quickly check
the Q&A um looks like we still have that open question which I'll come back to um
thank you all so much if there's anything please um we're wrapping up in the next five-ish minutes but if there
are any other questions now's the chance to kind of put them in the Q&A um and then to kind of to wrap up
the number three sort of best practice that I shared at the beginning um is really around mythbusting whenever
possible don't stay silent but also don't give students wrong information even if it's coming from a really good
place of like I think that's right I'm just going to say it um it's best with this population to always check and so I
always like to add these presentations with just more tactical information of of things you can say put in your
literature put in your guide books uh your college advising classes whatever you do at your high school organization
to mythbust and to make sure that students have the accurate information um to empower them in this process and
it starts with letting them know there's no federal law that prohibits you from applying so if you're undocumented like
please like you should apply there it's not illegal for you to do so um target
institutions as you're making a student's College list that offer immigrant friendly spaces and
support so if they have like a DACA or a documented student office or space or if they have a website that's a great
sign um policies at campuses are constantly changing so when in doubt ask call the
financial aid office hey do you provide Merit aid for your undocumented students what are your policies here are you
treating undocumented students as domestic for admissions and domestic for financial aid or domestic for admissions
and international for financial aid I tend to always do a little bit of that fact finding first as I'm preparing a
college list for a student um but always again of course want to
empower the student to also do some of this fact finding but if I myself am unsure first I will always kind of prime
the situation by doing a little fact finding myself first in my experience
college admissions offices and financial aid offices kind of evolve in like two
or three year cycles where you might have certain admissions counselors working there really familiar with
undocumented students stuff but then they might move on or they might um move up in their role and new counselors come
in so every two or three years even if you think you know what a school's policy is it doesn't hurt to doublecheck because things are always evolving and in Massachusetts or New England in general I would say they're evolving for
the better more and more student sorry more and more colleges are becoming undocu-friendly more and more colleges are
setting aside funds um for this population not all of them so always
fact find and you know as a local counselor I can tell you two or three schools on a mental short list that I
know actively don't give undocumented students financial aid so they they still exist I'm not going to name drop
them here um but if you're curious and or you're running into this um please
let's let's all share information and and be in community with one another offline about all this um and always
self-disclose connect with someone in the admissions office um it's just better to put it all out there first um
and for a to feel like you're there supporting them while they're doing this it can be a little bit scary for student
to call up a financial aid office or call up an admissions office so definitely handle these situations with
your undocumented students with a little bit more tenderness and a little bit um more
care um thank you for sharing technical info can you share some positive stories
of students for those who who may be newbies yeah of course thank you so so much um for sharing that I think bottom
line if you are building a trusting relationship
with your undocumented students their process is going to be a successful one their process might not
be exactly what they imagined for themselves initially um but once you
sort of go through the different options for them really lay it out be in that
Journey fact find together be really clear about what their options are what their options might not be
financially how you might be able to make those options happen I feel like students really go through an evolution
throughout their Junior and Senior years and really sort of encourage you to set
aside a little bit extra time for your undocumented students even just an extra little check-in in the hallway something
that that really brings out that trust and that sort of um symbiotic relationship between all of you and I
can say you know another thing that I usually share with counselors is the more that you can calibrate with your
fellow counselors in your school the better so I always um say at my school
we should have a calibration meeting where we kind of all meet in a room as you know three four counselors and say
okay who are undocumented students um where can we do some advocacy on their behalf you know we have four of them
where do they want to apply should we coach them to maybe look at this school
more because we know they have more positive um financial aid policies and so not that there our little marionettes
but we do as a counselor um as a counselor united front try to spread the wealth you know there are some undock
friendly schools around us that tend to be more undy friendly but they're not going to fund six undocumented students
every year right they might only fund one or two and so we want to make sure that we spread the wealth for our
students that we really go in as a united front and I think if your counseling office can do that there are
there are so many almost all of them can be really positive um great outcomes for
your students um I have undocumented students who start out saying I want to
play soccer at a D1 school and they make it there or I want to do this because my friends are doing it and then they end
up doing something else that still feels aligned to their career aspirations and and so um on that vein I have a few
slides her



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