It goes without saying, that the president-elect was an equal opportunity offender throughout his campaign. However, the focus of our discussion today is our undocumented immigrant students.
At this time I’d like to invite two of our community partners to join me on stage. Here with 10,000 Degrees—an organization committed to educational equity for all—is Scott BonDurant. And here with Canal Alliance—an organization committed to building pathways to success for immigrant families—is Lucia Martel-Dow. And we will be joined later by Omar Carrera, executive director of Canal Alliance for our Q & A session.
Today I will do my best to provide you with an overview of the status of our undocumented students, what DACA means, a bit on the concept of being a sanctuary campus, and finally the District’s position on supporting our students.
I will then invite Scott to share some perspective on our students and the experiences of their families.
After Scott speaks, I will then invite Lucia to share with us some of the resources available to our students and their families through Canal Alliance.
We will then hit “pause” on this conversation and move toward our keynote speaker. Following the keynote, we will conclude Convocation and then invite anyone interested in Q & A and further discussion on the topic of supporting our undocumented students to move to the front of the theater for that purpose.
[Refers to a slide with figures about number of undocumented immigrants and students in the United States and California]
Here I intentionally included data from 2012 to align with the year the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, (DACA) was created by executive order. These numbers have likely grown since that time.
As you can see, roughly 25 percent of all undocumented immigrants in the United States reside here in the Golden State and many attend school at all levels—from pre-school through university. And we most definitely serve a significant number of undocumented students right here at COM. But you already know that.
Many undocumented students are among those who chose to seek DACA status. As you can see here, there are approximately 740,000 undocumented immigrants with DACA status nationwide. Most certainly a large portion are indeed students.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is an immigration policy initiated by the Obama administration in 2012. Like many of President Obama’s Executive Orders, it was action he took in an effort to “do right” during a long period of our government’s inability or unwillingness to get things done. Here I include both the Ds and the Rs.
DACA allows certain undocumented immigrants to the United States who entered the country as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.
This slide outlines the required criteria for applying for DACA status in addition to paying a fairly significant application fee.
The big unknown is what will happen to DACA. Because it’s not a law or regulation it can be modified or ended at any time. While the president-elect has indicated an intention to end DACA, no specific plans have been laid out thus far.
There is some encouraging news—there has been some bi-partisan movement to create legislation that will hopefully protect DACA. In December, Senators Durbin (D-IL), Feinstein (D-CA), Graham (R-SC), and Murkowski (R-AK) introduced a bill which would help protect DACA and those with DACA status. Hopefully, we will hear more about that in the near future.
And as I’ve shared with you, the leaders of the UC, CSU and California Community College systems have made a direct appeal to the president-elect to maintain DACA.
Shortly after the election, I was asked by a variety of people if College of Marin would become a “sanctuary college”. I must admit that I honestly didn’t have a good understanding of what that exactly entailed. I was pleased to learn that I wasn’t alone—the CEO Listserv was burning up in November and December on that very topic.
Bottom line—there isn’t a formal or legal definition for being a sanctuary college.
The second and third bullets [refers to slide] are the most important to note.
• Being a sanctuary college doesn’t create a legal status for the institution
• Being a sanctuary college doesn’t create legal protections for undocumented students
I’ve outlined these principles to you in my December 12 message to the college community.
While we will endeavor to do all that we can to support and protect our undocumented students, we don’t want to create a false sense of security. We will do all we can to find that fine line.
Let’s talk about some actions we’ve already taken to protect our students.
You are all aware that there all kinds of rules for how we share or don’t share information about our students.
Yesterday at this time, our Board Policy 5040 pertaining to student records and directory information looked like this:
- Name
- Address
- Telephone listing
- Date and place of birth
- Level of education
- Academic majors
- Most recent educational institution enrolled by the student
- Student participation in officially recognized activities and sports including weight, height, and high school of graduation of athletic team members.
- Degrees and awards received by students, including honors, scholarship awards, athletic awards, and Dean’s List recognition.
As of 8 p.m. last evening at the conclusion of the Board of Trustees, our policy now looks like this:*
- Name
Address- Telephone listing
- Date
and placeof birth - Level of education
- Academic majors
- Most recent educational institution enrolled by the student
- Student participation in officially recognized activities and sports including weight, height, and high school of graduation of athletic team members.
- Degrees and awards received by students, including honors, scholarship awards, athletic awards, and Dean’s List recognition.
*Correction: During the presentation the slide incorrectly showed that additional directory information had been removed. The above list is what was presented to and approved by the Board of Trustees on January 17, 2017. Removal of additional directory information items in Board Policy 5040 is being discussed by the Academic Senate and revisions are expected to come before the Board soon.
Thank you for your patience as we have covered this background information. This seems like a perfect time to invite Scott to the podium to provide some perspective on behalf of our students and their families.
Thank you, Scott. I’d now like to invite Lucia to the podium to share with us some of the resources available to our students and their families through the Canal Alliance.
Thank you, Lucia. Please join me in thanking Scott, Lucia, and Omar for being here with us today.
Resources Provided by Canal Alliance and 10,000 Degrees:
Educators for Fair Consideration website http://www.e4fc.org/