The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges for many Hispanic/Latino/x college students, especially for Hispanic/Latino/x college-enrolled men who were undocumented in South Texas. We used an asset-based lens to explore the nuanced educational experiences of these students. Specifically, we relied on Yosso’s theoretical framework of community cultural wealth to describe how these students overcame various institutional barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic (Yosso, 2005). Their voices revealed a complex portrait of how they made courageous decisions to apply and enroll in college and fund their college education to earn a college degree or credential, despite their immigration status, so they may financially contribute to their families and local communities. Additionally, these students also described how they navigated their educational and career options despite the limited options for future employment. These findings provide a positive view of these students’ courage and resilience to improve their lives through education, despite their immigration status and the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An undocumented individual is a person who entered the United States without inspection or someone who has overstayed their visa (Passel, ). Undocumented individuals and their families face many challenges acclimating to and settling in the United States, including the risk of deportation and not being able to work lawfully.Undocumented youth face additional barriers as they navigate educational settings and enter adulthood. Institutions of higher education must understand the distinct experiences and needs of the undocumented student population toward realizing students’ success in their pursuit and completion of higher education. This chapter explores how postsecondary institutions and personnel can better support undocumented students. We begin by reviewing key federal, state, and local policies impacting undocumented students. Next, we evaluate and synthesize literature on the pre-college, college, and post-college experiences of these students. We subsequently use an ecological framework to summarize good practices at the macro, exo, micro, and individual levels of systems toward undocumented student success. We illustrate specific examples of good practices.

This chapter explores the legislative history of immigration and higher education, shedding light on the challenges faced by undocumented students in the US education system. Using findings from a qualitative study with undocumented students who left higher education, the chapter examines the barriers faced by students that affected their decisions to leave higher education, including financial need, imposter syndrome, and disclosure of identity. It also looks at the impact of interactions with peers, family pressure, and changing campus resources on student persistence. This chapter offers recommendations for support and retention of these students, including guidance during the transition from high school, advising, fostering a sense of community, and direct support services.

This volume, part of the Feminist Judgment Series, shows how feminist legal theory along with critical race theory and intersectional modes of critique might transform immigration law. Here, a diverse collection of scholars and lawyers bring critical feminist, race and intersectional insights to Supreme Court opinions that deal with the source of the power to regulate immigration, state and local regulation of immigration, citizenship law, racial discrimination, employment law, access to public education, the rights of criminal defendants, the detention of noncitizens, and more. Feminist reasoning values the perspectives of outsiders, exposes the deep-rooted bias in the legal opinions of courts, and illuminates the effects of ostensibly neutral policies that create and maintain oppression and hierarchy. One by one, the chapters in this book reimagine the norms that drive immigration policies and practices. In place of discrimination and subordination, the authors here demand welcome and equality. Where current law omits the voice and stories of noncitizens, the authors here center their lives and experiences. Collectively, they reveal how a feminist vision of immigration law could center a commitment to equality and justice and foster a country where diverse newcomers readily flourish with dignity.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Latin America was a region of immigration, where people moved from one country to another and/or people came from other continents, mostly from Europe. But by the 1960s, when many Latin American countries were suffering economic downturns, and the 1970s and 1980s, when state repression intensified, immigration turned to emigration, and many began making their way to the United States. Today, Latin Americans continue to migrate to the United States; people from all over the globe migrate to Latin America; and people move within the region. It is one of the most complex challenges confronting the United States and Latin America, and remains a very divisive issue in most countries of the region, especially the United States. This chapter looks at the push and pull factors that lead people to move from their home countries to resettle elsewhere.

Democracy is under attack through immigration workplace raids. Labor unions have finally come to realize that noncitizen workers – documented and undocumented – are their future. ICE raids have been timed – particularly by the Bush and Trump administrations to thwart organizing efforts. Through a process of demonization and commodification of immigrant workers, the public has been conditioned to ignore the racial implications of ICE raids. But even a cursory examination reveals the racist effects of these enforcement efforts. However, on closer analysis, it reveals how these attacks are an attack on democracy as well. ICE raids are an attack on labor organizing, which in turn represents an assault on the freedom of association, freedom from discrimination, a strong middle class, and democratic acculturation.

The journey to higher education by undocumented students has been one of legal, financial and informational barriers. Despite ensured equal access to primary and secondary education, federal policies addressing access to post-secondary education are non-existent – a lack of action that has motivated some states to provide additional access and others to erect further barriers. While the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme in 2012 has attenuated the transition to ‘illegality’ that many undocumented young people experienced after high school graduation, access to post-secondary education remains a challenging endeavour for most undocumented youth. The recent announcement to rescind DACA and the lack of a solution for comprehensively managing immigration further obscure the future of this constituency. Placed at the intersection of contrasting political, economic and social contexts, this chapter explores the experiences of three undocumented immigrant youth in Texas who enter adult transitions at differing levels of educational attainment. This chapter illustrates how policies, school practices and families’ legal structures continue to create conflicting educational experiences of exclusion and belonging for undocumented young people living in the United States.