Miriam Feldblum/Jose Magana-Salgado: What N.E. colleges should to prepare for a Supreme Court decision on DACA

From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org).

Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the administration could rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), with the fate of over 650,000 DACA recipients in the balance. While a decision is expected by June 2020, colleges and universities—including New England institutions—can begin preparing now.

As of September 2019, New England is home to more than 10,000 DACA recipients, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. DACA is a renewable protection originally created under the Obama administration that lets undocumented immigrant youth live and work legally in the U.S.

Under federal law, DACA recipients cannot access federal financial aid, so most rely on a mix of private scholarships, state or institutional aid, personal savings and multiple jobs to afford a college education. New England is a hub of prestigious higher education institutions, but remains a mixed bag for college-bound undocumented students. Connecticut and Rhode Island opted to extend in-state tuition to all state residents regardless of immigration status, while Massachusetts and Maine extend in-state tuition only to DACA recipients. New Hampshire effectively bars undocumented students from in-state tuition and financial aid, though individual institutions (such as the private Southern New Hampshire University) offer scholarships for undocumented students or in-state tuition for DACA recipients, according to the uLEAD (University Leaders for Educational Access and Diversity) Network.

But we don’t have to wait for the worst-case scenario to support undocumented students. Nationally, approximately 98,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, the most recent graduating without access to DACA. Approximately 450,000 undocumented students with and without DACA are studying at colleges and universities across the country. With that in mind, here are five ways universities and states can help their DACA and undocumented students, before and after the Supreme Court decision: 

Renew, renew, renew! Colleges should encourage DACA recipients to renew immediately if they have a year or less of their DACA status. While we do n0t know exactly how the program could be phased out, pending applications (e.g. those received by the government on the date of a decision) may still be processed if the Supreme Court allows the administration to end DACA. There are also resources available to help with the process and application fees.

Audit your internal and external financial aid policies regarding DACA and undocumented undergraduate and graduate students. Take a look at the eligibility criteria for your institution’s admissions, financial aid and tuition policies for DACA and undocumented students and, if needed, adjust them. Institutional policies should ensure that funding streams available to DACA recipients can be expanded to those without DACA. Delinking DACA from eligibility criteria lets institutions expand financial aid, admissions and tuition policies to both former DACA recipients and those who could not apply for DACA. While undocumented undergraduates have received considerable attention, it is crucial for institutions to also improve access, funding and support for undocumented graduate and professional students.

Weigh in on the state level and work to amend state tuition and aid policies. If your state policies are in any way tailored to DACA, explore how they can be expanded if DACA is ended so the same cohort of students continues to benefit. For example, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education currently bases its in-state tuition rules around DACA recipients’ work permits, which they would lose along with DACA. States can adopt proxy measures, like length of residency, instead of immigration status to capture that same population.

Establish alternative options for income generation. Students will need to prepare for the possibility that they may lose their work permits and the ability to generate income. Schools can support students by directing them to non-employment-based internships and externships and creating or expanding fellowships and scholarships that also do not require work permits.

Both public and private institutions can develop non-employment-based funding through educational fellowship programs. An educational fellowship funds a student through a scholarship or stipend rather than through the employer. As long as the student is the “primary beneficiary” of the work relationship (the closely supervised work is closely related to learning goals), this is not considered an “employment relationship” by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Schools can also think outside the box and look for opportunities with cooperatives, self-employment and small businesses—lawful options that do not necessarily require employment authorization.

Connect students to campus resources. Connect DACA recipients to legal resources so they can see if they qualify for better forms of relief. Schools will have to invest in investigating and educating students, counselors and immigrant resource centers on alternative forms of income generation. Importantly, campuses should connect students to other forms of support, including mental and health services.

Finally, earlier this year the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration convened stakeholders including higher ed presidents and chancellors, government relations experts and advocates to develop the Campus Checklist to Prepare for a Supreme Court DACA Decision, a synthesis of the top opportunities for campuses to prepare for a DACA decision. We encourage campuses to utilize it extensively.

Miriam Feldblum is executive director and Jose Magaña-Salgado is director of policy and communications at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

In Boston, long-term health care threatened by plan to end protected status for Haitians

Nirva (left), a Haitian immigrant living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, has helped care for 96-year-old Isolina Dicenso since 2011.  Here they are in a windswept Millennium Park in Boston's rather suburb-like West Roxbury neighborhood.

-- Photo by Melissa Bailey for Kaiser Health News

By MELISSA BAILEY

For Kaiser Health News

BOSTON

After back-to-back, eight-hour shifts at a chiropractor’s office and a rehab center, Nirva arrived outside an elderly woman’s house just in time to help her up the front steps.

Nirva took the woman’s arm as she hoisted herself up, one step at a time, taking breaks to ease the pain in her hip. At the top, they stopped for a hug.

“Hello, bella,” Nirva said, using the word for “beautiful” in Italian.

“Hi, baby,” replied Isolina Dicenso, the 96-year-old woman she has helped care for for seven years.

The women each bear accents from their homelands: Nirva, who asked that her full name be withheld, fled here from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Dicenso moved here from Italy in 1949. Over the years, Nirva, 46, has helped her live independently, giving her showers, changing her clothes, washing her windows, taking her to her favorite parks and discount grocery stores.

Now Dicenso and other people living with disabilities, serious illness and the frailty of old age are bracing to lose caregivers like Nirva due to changes in federal immigration policy.

Nirva is one of about 59,000 Haitians living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian program that gave them permission to work and live here after the January 2010 earthquake devastated their country. Many work in health care, often in grueling, low-wage jobs as nursing assistants or home health aides.

Now these workers’ days are numbered: The Trump administration decided to end TPS for Haitians, giving them until July 22, 2019, to leave the country or face deportation.

In Boston, the city with the nation’s third-highest Haitian population, the decision has prompted panic from TPS holders and pleas from health-care agencies that rely on their labor. The fallout offers a glimpse into how changes in immigration policy are affecting older Americans in communities around the country, especially in large cities.

Ending TPS for Haitians “will have a devastating impact on the ability of skilled nursing facilities to provide quality care to frail and disabled residents,” warned Tara Gregorio, president of the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, which represents 400 elder care facilities, in a letter published in The Boston Globe. Nursing facilities employ about 4,300 Haitians across the state, she said.

“We are very concerned about the threat of losing these dedicated, hardworking individuals, particularly at a time when we cannot afford to lose workers,” Gregorio said in a recent interview. In Massachusetts, 1 in 7 certified nursing assistant (CNA) positions are vacant, a shortage of 3,000 workers, she said.

Nationwide, 1 million immigrants work in direct care — as CNAs, personal-care attendants or home health aides — according to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, a New York-based organization that studies the workforce. Immigrants make up 1 in 4 workers, said Robert Espinoza, PHI’s vice president of policy. Turnover is high, he said, because the work is difficult and wages are low. The median wage for personal-care attendants and home health aides is $10.66 per hour, and $12.78 per hour for CNAs. Workers often receive little training and leave when they find higher-paying jobs at retail counters or fast-food restaurants, he said.

The country faces a severe shortage in home health aides. With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, an even more serious shortfall lies ahead, according to Paul Osterman, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. He predicts a national shortfall of 151,000 direct-care workers by 2030, a gap that will grow to 355,000 by 2040. That shortage will escalate if immigrant workers lose work permits, or if other industries raise wages and lure away direct care workers, he said.

Nursing homes in Massachusetts are already losing immigrant workers who have left the country in fear, in response to the White House’s public remarksand immigration proposals, Gregorio said. Nationally, thousands of Haitians have fled the U.S. for Canada, some risking their lives trekking across the border through desolate prairies, after learning that TPS would likely end.

Employers are fighting to hold on to their staff: Late last year, 32 Massachusetts health-care providers and advocacy groups wrote to the Department of Homeland Security urging the acting secretary to extend TPS, protecting the state’s 4,724 Haitians with that special status.

“What people don’t seem to understand is that people from other countries really are the backbone of long-term care,” said Sister Jacquelyn McCarthy, CEO of Bethany Health Care Center in Framingham, Mass., which runs a nursing home with 170 patients. She has eight Haitian and Salvadoran workers with TPS, mostly certified nursing assistants. They show up reliably for 4:30 a.m. shifts and never call out sick, she said. Many of them have worked there for over five years. She said she already has six CNA vacancies and can’t afford to lose more.

“There aren’t people to replace them if they should all be deported,” McCarthy said.

Nirva works 70 hours a week taking care of elderly, sick and disabled patients. She started working as a CNA shortly after she arrived in Boston in March 2010 with her two sons.

She chose this work because of her harrowing experience in the earthquake, which destroyed her home and killed hundreds of thousands, including her cousin and nephew. After the disaster, she walked 15 miles with her sister, a nurse, to a Red Cross medical station to try to help survivors. When she got there, she recounted, the guards wouldn’t let her in because she wasn’t a nurse. Nirva spent an entire day waiting for her sister in the hot sun, without food or water, unable to help. It was “very frustrating,” she said.

“So, when I came here — I feel, people’s life is very important,” she said. “I have to be in the medical field, just to be able to help people.”

Caregiver Nirva and Isolina Dicenso have grown close, bonding in part over their Catholic faith. “Thank God I met this woman,” Dicenso, 96, says of Nirva.

The work of a CNA or home health aide — which includes dressing and changing patients and lifting them out of bed — was difficult, she found.

“At the beginning, it was very tough for me,” Nirva said, especially “when I have to clean their incontinence. … Some of them, they have dementia, they are fighting. They insult you. You have to be very compassionate to do this job.”

A few months ago, Nirva was injured while tending to a 285-pound patient who was lying on her side. Nirva said she was holding the patient up with one hand while she washed her with the other hand. The patient fell back on her, twisting Nirva’s wrist.

Injury rates for nursing assistants were more than triple the national average in 2016, federal labor statistics show. Common causes were falling, overexertion while lifting or lowering, and enduring violent attacks.

Nirva works with a soft voice, a bubbling laugh and disarming modesty, covering her face with both hands when receiving a compliment. She said her faith in God — and a need to pay the bills to support her two sons, now in high school and college — help her get through each week.

She started caring for Dicenso in her Boston home as the older woman was recovering from surgery in 2011. Like many older Americans, Dicenso doesn’t want to move out of her home, where she has lived for 63 years. She is able to keep living there, alone, with help from her daughter, Nirva and another in-home aide. She now sees Nirva once a week for walks, lunch outings and shopping runs. The two have grown close, bonding in part over their Catholic faith. Dicenso gushed as she described spending her 96th birthday with Nirva on a daylong adventure that included a Mass at a Haitian church. At home, Dicenso proudly displays a bedspread that Nirva gave her, emblazoned with the word LOVE.

On a recent sunny winter morning, Nirva drove Dicenso across town to a hilltop clearing called Millennium Park.

“What a beautiful day!” Dicenso declared five times, beholding the open sky and views of the Charles River. As she walked with a cane in one hand and Nirva’s hand firmly clasped in the other, Dicenso stopped several times due to pain in her hips.

“Thank God I have her on my arm,” Dicenso said. “Nirva, if I no have you on my arm, I go face-down. Thank God I met this woman.”

In addition to seeing Dicenso, Nirva works three shifts a week at a chiropractor’s office as a medical assistant. Five nights a week, she works the overnight shift, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., at a rehabilitation center in Boston run by Hebrew SeniorLife. CEO Louis Woolf said Hebrew SeniorLife has 40 workers with TPS, out of a total of 2,600.

It’s not clear how many direct care workers rely on TPS, but PHI calculates there are 34,600 who are non-U.S. citizens from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua (for which TPS is ending next year) and Honduras, whose TPS designation expires in July. In addition, another 11,000 come from countries affected by Trump’s travel ban, primarily from Somalia and Iran, and about 69,800 are non-U.S. citizens from Mexico, PHI’s Espinoza said. Even immigrants with secure legal status may be affected when family members are deported, he noted. Under Trump, non-criminal immigration arrests have doubled.

The “totality of the anti-immigrant climate” threatens the stability of the workforce — and “the ability of older people and people with disabilities to access home health care,” Espinoza said.

Asked about the impact on the U.S. labor force, a DHS official said that “economic considerations are not legally permissible in TPS decisions.” By law, TPS designation hinges instead on whether the foreign country faces adverse conditions, such as war or environmental disaster, that make it unsafe for nationals to return to, the official said.

The biggest hit to the immigrant workforce that cares for older patients may come from another program — family reunification, said Robyn Stone, senior vice president of research at LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit groups that care for the elderly. Trump is seeking to scrap the program, which he calls “chain” migration, in favor of a “merit-based” policy.

Osterman, the MIT professor, said the sum of all of these immigration policy changes may have a serious impact. If demand for workers exceeds supply, he said, insurers may have to restrict the number of hours of care that people receive, and wages may rise, driving up costs.

“People aren’t going to be able to have quality care,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to stay at home.”

But since three-quarters of the nation’s direct care workers are U.S. citizens, then “these are clearly not ‘jobs that Americans won’t do,’” argued David Ray, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports more restrictive immigration policies. The U.S. has 6.7 million unemployed people, he noted. If the health care industry can’t find anyone to replace workers who lose TPS and DACA, he said, “then it needs to take a hard look at its recruiting practices and compensation packages. There are clearly plenty of workers here in the U.S. already who are ready and willing to do the work.”

Angelina Di Pietro, Dicenso’s daughter and primary caretaker, disagreed. “There’s not a lot of people in this country who would take care of the elderly,” she said. “Taking care of the elderly is a hard job.”

“Nirva, pray to God they let you stay,” said Dicenso, sitting back in her living-room armchair after a long walk and ravioli lunch. “What would I do without you?”

Robert Kim Bingham Sr.: Herewith a simple path to legal immigration status for millions

"Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World'' (1886) by Edward Moran. Oil on canvas. The J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York.

NEW LONDON, Conn.
 
As a retired Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lawyer, I have often asked myself "What should the federal government do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America?"
 
The simple answer is to revive a dormant law.
 
While serving in the general counsel's  offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and ICE for 37 years, I observed many long-time undocumented immigrants facing removal proceedings. They were ineligible for relief from deportation under section 249(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (Act) because they had entered the United States after Jan. 1, 1972. Otherwise, they would have been eligible to apply for the benefit of lawful permanent residence status under section 249(a).
 
In fairness to those who have set down deep roots in America, I urge Congress to enact a bill updating 249's outdated entry requirement from Jan. 1, 1972, to Jan. 1, 2005. This would constitute a major, but fair, breakthrough immigration solution that could benefit thousands of persons who have resided here continuously for more than a decade, including many DACA {Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals}  recipients, and who wish to apply for lawful permanent residence.
 
By changing the eligibility date, long-time foreign-born residents who possess good moral character would have a path to legal status. The section's existing legal bars would still block from legal status "inadmissible criminals, procurers, and other immoral persons, subversives, violators of the narcotic laws or smugglers of aliens."
 
Every applicant would continue to bear the burden of proof to establish eligibility. Once the USCIS or immigration court granted lawful permanent residence, the applicant would typically wait five years thereafter to apply for naturalization, or three years if married to a U.S. citizen.
 
This update of the section would amount to a simple statutory fix with enormous consequences that could be supported even by Republicans who can appreciate that a party hero, Ronald Reagan, was the last president to update section 249(a), on Nov. 6, 1986.
 
Experienced immigration practitioners have expressed solid support for this immigration solution.
 
"It would be the easiest solution, of course," said Rita Provatas, a member of the Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). "(Its) beauty is the statute's simplicity."
 
In its March 14, 2017, editorial, The {New London, Conn.} Day said it "likes the suggestion of Robert Kim Bingham Sr., a veteran attorney with ICE."
 
These are but a couple of the many voices from various political persuasions that have expressed support for the proposal.
 
Given that a significant number of the "11 million" group, who have lived here continuously for over a decade could qualify to become lawful permanent residents under section 249(a), if updated accordingly, the time for Congress to move up the entry date to Jan.  1, 2005 is now.
 
 
Robert Kim Bingham Sr. , who lives in the New London area, retired after working 37 years as an ICE lawyer. He can be reached at  rbingham03@snet.net. Thank you to Chris Powell, of the (Manchester, Conn., Journal Inquirer, for notifying New England Diary about this essay.
 


 
 

Llewellyn King: Businesspeople flummoxed by Trump but must work with him

After more than six months of vilifying, ridiculing and laughing out loud at President Trump, Washington is getting down to realizing that he is the president — and he will not be gone, by some miracle, in the morning.

Ergo, it is time for companies, lobbyists and Congress to find a mechanism to work with Trump or around him. It might be described as a dance: the perplexity quickstep. Fleet feet are essential.

Business is treading with increasing alarm and tentativeness. Lobbyists are seeking White House sources for steps guidance. And Congress is tripping over new choreography.

A lot of business leaders thought that Trump, himself a businessman, would see government from the Oval Office as though he were still sitting in the corner office. They believed that he would seek the best path forward, going for the main chance and strategizing how to get there. Instead, the business community — from the chairmen of some of the largest companies, with whom I have spoken, to those of small- and medium-size companies — is flummoxed, reviling Trump in private and seeking advice from a variety of Washington gurus on what to do going forward.

Business people, who think that they understand cause and effect, cannot find a pattern that suggests the president has any understanding of that relationship. Business hankers for certainty, Trump for adulation. Business worries about the bottom line, Trump about the television commentariat. Business people who want to get a point of view across to the president are trying to get on television — particularly on the morning shows on Fox.

The trade associations, among the most effective lobbies in Washington, are working under the old rules while trying to learn the new dance steps. So they continue to “applaud” Trump appointments and to “congratulate” administration policy. Business and its lobbyists truly hope for lower corporate taxes and for loosening of regulations but they worry about the future of trade and trade agreements — and the concept that America can pull back all its overseas commitments. “America First” is a harbinger of bad things to come for global companies.

Many CEOs, including Elon Musk, of Tesla, Tim Cook, of Apple,  and some other bold Silicon Valley C-suiters, have criticized Trump and quit his advisory committees. This has earned them public plaudits, but in doing so they have reduced their ability to affect things. Many others ask, “With Trump, isn’t it better to be on the inside, as close to the president as possible?” Trump is said to believe the last person with whom he spoke.

In Washington’s new dance, the hope is that when the music stops, you are the one standing next to him. You cannot do this if you have taken off to California in high dudgeon.

Many corporations are in the awkward position of needing good relationships with the White House because they are involved in government contracting — and most large corporations are, even as they like to denounce government. Less government, more contracts is the dichotomy of the business-government relationship.

So many corporations with interests in Washington are learning the perplexity quickstep: two quick steps to the right, two quick steps to the left, and circle to the rear. Dance near Trump and he might heap praise on you. Dance far from him and he might come after you for manufacturing overseas. Like his own party and the press, business waits for the new choreography which often arrives by Twitter in the early morning.

This was a week to marvel at the perplexity quickstep: Trump decided on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, or DACA, putting the fate of nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants in lawmakers’ hands before undermining the whole effort by tweeting that if Congress did not act in six months, he would insert himself back into the process. Then he danced the GOP right off the floor and cut a deal with the House and Senate Democratic leaders, Nancy Pelosi, of California, and Chuck Schumer, of New York. Dizzying.

Llewellyn King (llewellynking1@gmail.com) is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. 

Elsa Nunez: 'Dreamers' are at heart of the American Dream

Science Building at Eastern Connecticut State University, in Willimantic.

WILLIMANTIC, Conn.

The recent controversy surrounding a proposed ban on immigration from seven Middle East countries recalls similar times in our history. More than 130 years ago, Chinese immigration was restricted. In 1924, Japanese immigrants were effectively barred from entering the U.S., and Mexicans living here during the Depression were the subject of repatriation, even those who were U.S. citizens. Other restrictions on immigration have marked our history, based on the domestic and global politics of the times.

The latest policy pronouncements reaffirm the need for comprehensive immigration reform in this country. It is time for Congress to decide how to balance securing our borders with the need for a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people already in the U.S.

While we wait to see what Congress does, 1.8 million young people deserve better. Known as “Dreamers,” this entire generation of talented, dedicated students was born abroad but raised in this country without documented legal status. Since 2012, more than 740,000 Dreamers have been given Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, allowing them to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.

DACA students came to this country as children, they have grown up here, been schooled here, and dream of having productive, engaged lives here as American citizens. They think of themselves as Americans. They are exactly like the children of immigrants arriving in our country throughout most of our nation’s history, and today, they are like the children sitting next to them in school, except for the matter of permanent legal status.

Even with DACA status, these young people still face an uphill battle to achieve the promise of a college education. In 16 states, DACA students are either prevented from attending their in-state public college or university, or are forced to pay prohibitively expensive out-of-state tuition to attend their home-state public institutions. “Locked out” states include Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

TheDream.US, a national foundation created by former Washington Post publisher Donald Graham and his wife, Amanda Bennett, has established the Opportunity Scholarship program to support upwards of 500 Dreamers over the next few years. Opportunity Scholars receive sufficient scholarship funds to fully pay for their tuition, fees, room and board.

In fall 2016, Eastern Connecticut State University was one of two institutions nationally—Delaware State University is the other—to enroll the very first cohort of Opportunity Scholars. In addition to 42 eligible Dreamers from the 16 locked-out states, the Dream.US foundation is also supporting five DACA students from Connecticut to attend Eastern. No public funds are being used to support Eastern’s Dreamers, and no in-state students are being denied admission because of the program.

Our 42 out-of-state Dreamers come from eight locked out states—Georgia, Idaho, Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Indiana—and from 13 different countries, ranging from Brazil to India, Ecuador and Zimbabwe. Applications are already being accepted for fall 2017, and Eastern will likely enroll another 75 Opportunity Scholars.

How are our Opportunity Scholars doing in this first year at Eastern? All 42 out-of-state Opportunity Scholars—as well as all five from Connecticut—have successfully weathered their first semester on campus and are back for the spring. The median GPA of our out-of-state Dreamers is an impressive 3.58! They are already becoming campus leaders—as members of the Honors Program, as resident assistants and as senators on the Student Government Association. The key has been to treat them with respect—they aren’t singled out nor housed in a single dormitory or made to feel different from their peers on campus. They receive the same personal attention for which our close-knit, public liberal arts campus is known.

When I speak to our Opportunity Scholars—and I make an effort to seek them out individually whenever possible—I am struck by their gratitude and their determination to succeed. These young people—like the native-born citizens they sit next to in class—are our nation’s future leaders, doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers and business leaders. Their talents, work ethic and diversity bode well for our economy and society.

As much as this success story at Eastern is uplifting, the broader issue of the future of Dreamers in our country is a test of this nation’s moral fiber. Everyone in this country—except Native Americans—has ancestors who originally came from other lands to create the rich diversity we have today in the U.S. Like other members of American society, motivated, high-achieving immigrant students, no matter their nation of origin, should also have access to education—the key to social mobility and economic security in the U.S. That must be our commitment to them, knowing that what we get in return—a rich diversity of culture, religion, race and political thought—is the core strength of our democracy.

It is not by accident that our nation is the world’s melting pot, brimming with people of all nationalities and backgrounds. The U.S.—the greatest experiment in democracy the world has ever known—has enjoyed a moral standing throughout the world because it serves as a beacon of hope to all who long for freedom and opportunity. Acknowledging the right of today’s Dreamers to pursue a college education will reaffirm this moral high ground. Returning them to home nations that they cannot remember would be a disservice to these young people, would prevent them from making a contribution to our society, and would diminish our moral standing around the globe.

At Eastern, we will continue to enroll, support and advocate for the outstanding Opportunity Scholars who have come to us to earn their college degree. We urge all educators—all Americans!—to lobby our congressional leaders to do the right thing—extend the American Dream to a deserving generation of Dreamers while pursuing a viable long-term solution to the immigration issue.

Elsa Nunez is president of Eastern Connecticut State University. This piece first ran on the Web site of the New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org).