Misinformation about immigration has gotten national attention this election season. But there's also misinformation directed at immigrants, including students at Northern Illinois University.
The student-led group DreamAction NIU and the Undocumented Student Resource Center tabled on campus at the student center on campus, encouraging folks passing by to show support for immigrants as part of the “I Stand with Immigrants” day of action.
The center supports undocumented students on campus, and it provides information relevant to the wider immigrant community.
For instance, in June, when the Biden Administration announced the Keeping Families Together immigration parole program, Lopez says they received a lot of inquiries.
The center organized a Zoom call with a trusted immigration attorney for information.
“There were so many misconceptions and misunderstandings about what was happening,” said Dr. Sandy Lopez, the director of the center, “and people started taking money, like families were giving money in the 1000s of dollars to start applying, and we're like, there is no application yet.”
The policy would allow for some undocumented people who are married to or a stepchild of a U.S. citizen to apply for permanent resident status in the U.S. But just days after the applications were being accepted, a federal judge placed a pause on the program.
Lopez said that another program they get questions about is DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
The law was created under an executive order by President Obama and has undergone challenges in the courts since 2017.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a second time against the policy in October and is expected to hand down a decision in the spring.
New applicants are not being accepted, but renewals are.
“Which is super important for a community to know, Lopez said, “that if you have DACA, you should be renewing it, and make sure you renew it with enough time -- six months, even a little bit out, further out, than six months, because it's taking a long time to process.”
Then there’s the FASFA snafu when the national system for applying for financial aid to higher education transitioned to a streamlined application. The switch caused headaches for families and college administrators alike, but for students of mixed status families, there was an additional obstacle to overcome. “Mixed-status families” refers to U.S. born students with one or more undocumented parents. The new system required their parents to verify their identity.
“So, if you don't have a Social Security number, it was more difficult to verify you,” Lopez said. “So, there was this process that family members had to go through for verification. It scared some folks from even wanting to apply. It was a bit more difficult to prove, to say who they were -- ‘I am who I say I am on this form.’”
She said the obstacle demonstrates the need to support students from mixed status families across the country.
“Those students don't know what they are and are not afforded,” she said. “And more importantly, they get scared sometimes, and they don't even apply.”
Regarding undocumented students, Lopez said when she holds outreach events, she finds that at the high school level they are still being told they can’t go to college.
“There's a lot of opportunities that our students are being told they cannot take advantage of, and it's not true,” she said. “So, we have a lot of misinformation and a lot of missing information.”
At NIU, Tosin is among those who help guide undocumented students figure out how they're going to pay for college.
He’s a junior majoring in computer science and is from Nigeria. This semester he’s interning at the Undocumented Student Resource Center.
“I work on providing scholarships to students,” he said, “and I also help out with the Huskie Service Scholar.”
Tosin said he’s benefited from scholarships himself since his freshman year.
“The fees can be a little bit above our means,” he said, “so having the support with scholarships and grants and all that is really helpful to help us focus more on our education.”
One possible funding avenue is state financial aid through the RISE Act application. Illinois is among a handful of states in which eligible undocumented students can apply for state funding.
