Dreams Deferred: The Impact of Legal Reforms on Undocumented Latino Youth

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YouthDreams Deferred: The Impact of Legal Reforms on Undocumented Latino

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Article

Dreams Deferred: The Impact of Legal Reforms on Undocumented Latino Youth

Lisa M. Martinez1

AbstractDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was enacted in August 2012, allowing undocumented youth who meet eligibility criteria to live and work in the United States for a period of 2 years. In April 2013, the Governor of Colorado signed the Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow bill granting undocumented students reduced tuition in the state’s public universities. In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, this article addresses how legal reforms affect undocumented Latina/o youth in the context of a shifting political landscape in Colorado. Specifically, I address how these reforms affect immigrant youths’ access to higher education and employment opportunities. Data from qualitative interviews with 18 Latina/o undocumented youth ages 16 to 25 show that, while immigration reforms have created some opportunities, the policies’ limitations leave immigrant youth in “holding patterns” that delay or impede their access to higher education and, consequently, upward mobility. I also shed light on their perceptions of these reforms.

Keywordsimmigration, undocumented youth, Latinas/os, DACA, ASSET

Nearly 500,000 undocumented youth have applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and more than half have been approved (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2013). Of those approved, the majority of applicants were born in Mexico, more than half were under the age of 21, and nearly three quarters had lived

1University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

Corresponding Author:Lisa M. Martinez, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Denver, 2000 E Asbury Ave, Denver, CO 80208, USA. Email: [email protected]

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1874 American Behavioral Scientist 58(14)

in the United States for at least 10 years, a third of which were childhood arrivals (Gonzales & Terriquez, 2013; Singer & Svajlenka, 2013). Since being enacted, DACA has provided opportunities for many undocumented youth to live, work, and attend institutions of higher education despite their status. State-level measures geared toward immigrant youth, such as Colorado’s Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow (ASSET) bill, are complementing efforts at the federal level. After a politi-cal battle spanning 10 years, Colorado passed the ASSET bill with bipartisan support in November 2012, which was signed into effect in April 2013. ASSET makes it pos-sible for undocumented students to pay lower tuition rates in the state’s public colleges and universities.1 Billed as a “simpler, more equitable approach to tuition,” by former high school principal and Colorado State Senator Mike Johnston (Hoover, 2013), ASSET proponents emphasized the need to incorporate the state’s foreign-born popu-lation via educational and economic opportunities with the hope they will one day contribute to the state’s economy.

In light of these measures, this article addresses how legal reforms, specifically, DACA and ASSET, have affected undocumented Latina/o youth. Specifically, I address how these reforms have affected access to education for undocumented youth and what that portends for their social mobility. Although not comprehensive immi-gration reform, these measures will influence the integration, assimilation, and mobil-ity patterns of young, Latina/o immigrants. At the same time, short of a pathway to citizenship, a growing number of undocumented youth will linger in a state between legality and illegality (Menjívar, 2006b). In the absence of comprehensive reform, then, are DACA and ASSET sufficient or do they offer short-term solutions? Do these policies keep young people in long-term “holding patterns” that delay or circumvent their prospects for mobility? Using interview data with undocumented Latina/o youth ages 16 to 25, I address these questions by shedding light on respondents’ experiences before and after DACA and share their views of how the policies have affected them.

These questions are situated against the backdrop of immigration politics in Colorado, a state with long-standing and growing Latina/o and foreign-born popula-tions. In the last decade, punitive measures, such as SB 90,2 a predecessor to several states’ “show me your papers” provisions, as well as pro-immigrant measures, such as ASSET and a driver’s license bill, have had negative and positive consequences for Colorado’s immigrant communities. In more recent years, however, changing demo-graphics and growing Latina/o political clout following the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections have contributed to a shifting political climate with elected officials on both sides of the political aisle taking more measured stances on immigration. These devel-opments, coupled with the efforts of a statewide coalition of immigrant rights organi-zations, are largely responsible for the turn toward a more favorable political landscape for immigrants. Although Colorado’s recent responses to immigrants are less hostile than other states (see Szkupinski-Quiroga, Medina, & Glick, 2014), undocumented youth who qualify for DACA and ASSET continue to face structural barriers due to their status. As I argue below, participants’ experiences challenge long-standing notions about education as a pathway to mobility and demonstrate that, while legal reforms provide some opportunities for access to higher education and a reprieve from



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deportation, they fall short in providing long-term solutions. The reforms also limit options for youth who are not college bound or are ineligible to apply because of their age, nor do they offer relief for members of mixed-status families who do not meet eligibility requirements. The data also speak to youths’ perceptions of new opportuni-ties resulting from the reforms, which range from happiness and relief to ambivalence and cynicism.

Literature Review

Recent immigrants to the United States are faced with different structural realities than those who arrived in the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Tienda & Haskins, 2011; Zhou, 1999). Industrial restructuring and the shift to a service-based economy, spatial segregation, concentration in high-poverty areas where opportunities are declining, and the increasing non-White character of recent arrivals makes them susceptible to contextual vulnerabilities that affect their incorporation (Haller, Portes, & Lynch, 2011; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Waters, Tran, Kasinitz, & Mollenkopf, 2010). Immigrant youth are in the most disadvantaged positions due to perceived racial discrimination, limited opportunities, and blocked mobility (Portes & Zhou, 1993; see also Haller et al., 2011; Portes & Stepick, 1993; Waters, 1997). In addition to encountering different structural realities, today’s immigrant youth face additional barriers to mobility due to their immigration status, even if they migrate to and are educated in the United States at a young age. While immigrant Latino youths’ incorporation patterns are comparable to those of native-born Latinos through high school, the elimination of legal protections after high school may cause them to lose motivation due to perceived insurmountable barriers and, subsequently, lead to bleak academic and employment outcomes (Abrego, 2006; Gonzales, Terriquez, & Ruszczyk, 2014).

Other research unpacking the relationships between education and immigrant mobility finds that immigrant Latinos, much like prior immigrant ethnic groups, are exhibiting similar patterns of economic integration and assimilation (with some excep-tions; Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, Waters, & Holdaway, 2008). This research provides some evidence that Latinos are experiencing general uplift consistent with length of time in the United States and increasing levels of education and may be outpacing the genera-tions that preceded them. These patterns may be short lived, however, as evidenced by immigrant and native-born Latinos’ persistent educational challenges. Gandara and Contreras (2009), for example, question whether it is appropriate to suggest Latino youth are outperforming prior generations especially given the lower levels of educa-tional attainment of their parents to begin with. They note that, while a young person with a 10th-grade education may have more schooling than a parent with an elemen-tary school education, it is unlikely to result in significantly better economic outcomes relative to his or her parents. Given the relative youth of the Latino-origin population, the lack of educational and economic opportunities could translate into an entire gen-eration facing considerable economic hardship and blocked mobility (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010; Telles & Ortiz, 2009).




In terms of educational outcomes, another important factor is immigrants’ status (Crosnoe & Turley, 2011; Greenman & Hall, 2013; Portes & MacLeod, 1999). The impact of their status can either be reduced or reinforced based on familial, educa-tional, and structural dynamics so that, even though immigrant youth may exhibit similar mobility patterns as prior generations, their experiences and outcomes might be quite different. Because few studies have examined how factors beyond individual and structural ones influence social mobility, it is difficult to determine how immigrant status affects youths’ educational and economic trajectories (for an exception, see Abrego, 2006). It is unclear, then, whether the well-established relationship between education and mobility continues to hold as strongly for immigrant youth today as was the case in previous generations.

Sociolegal factors, including immigration laws, affect immigrant incorporation and mobility (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1999), membership (Johnson, 1996), identity and sense of belonging (Calavita, 2005; Flores-González, Aranda, & Vaquera, 2014), and even health (see Castañeda & Melo, 2014). The important work of Abrego (2006, 2008), Chavez (2008), Contreras (2009), Gonzales (2010, 2011), and Menjívar (2006a, 2006b) highlight the challenges faced by immigrant youth and their families who must navigate the rocky terrain conferred by their status (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010; Gleeson & Gonzales, 2012; see also Menjívar & Abrego, 2009). This scholarship focuses on the state of limbo or liminality of undocumented youth who straddle a space at the margins, one at the intersection of legality and illegality (Chavez, 2008; Menjívar, 2006b). For example, Menjívar (2006a, p. 180) maintains that liminal legality is a use-ful concept when studying undocumented immigrants because “it captures the reality of being not fully documented or undocumented” but rather “is the gray area between legal categories . . . which can extend for indefinite periods of time.” Building on the concept of abjectivity, Chavez (2008, p. 118) contends that immigrants are

. . . rejected and abject subjects [who] live in a liminal space where the boundary between their everyday lives in the nation and their lives as part of the nation is maintained as a way of ensuring their control and social regulation. (italics in original)

Furthermore, Gonzales and Chavez (2012) argue that the ability to move from an ille-gal to legal status has been made more difficult by immigration policies such as the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act and more recent “show me your papers” laws. In such contexts, illegality prevents immigrants from fully integrating into society, excluding or making them targets solely on the basis of their status (Gonzales & Chavez, 2012). The concept of liminal legality is appropriate here, too, as DACA recipients are granted legal presence but not lawful status, and their deferred status is valid only as long as the policy is in place, leaving their long-term status in flux. As Gandara and Contreras (2009, p. 1) note, “A college degree is increasingly a prerequisite for a middle-class income; the gaps in earnings and oppor-tunity between those with college degrees and those without have widened dramati-cally.” Although DACA and ASSET allow immigrant youth to access institutions of



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higher education, the question remains whether they will be able to leverage college degrees into promising employment opportunities.

Data and Method

Data from this article stem from a larger study on the pathways to mobility among Latina/o and undocumented youth ages 16 to 25. Participants were recruited via a snowball sample of students from high schools, junior colleges, and public and private universities in Colorado, personal contacts with strong ties to immigrant communities, and members of immigrant rights organizations. I recruited participants at important stages in the life course, including youth who were precollege age, those who were enrolled in college or working, and those who were postcollege age and employed or in search of employment. Data collection began in June 2012, and 2 months later, I decided to include questions regarding the impact of legal reforms on undocumented youth as the immigration debate began to garner more attention following DACA’s implementation. I also included questions about the ASSET bill, though they were only applicable to undocumented youth attending public universities in state and only after the bill was signed in April 2013 did I ask respondents about it. In total, I con-ducted 60 in-depth, semistructured interviews with Latina/o origin youth. Eighteen respondents were undocumented and came to the United States prior to the age of 10, making them part of the 1.5 generation. Thirty-two respondents were second genera-tion but living in mixed-status families where at least one family member was undocu-mented, and 10 respondents were third generation or beyond. Interviews were completed in August 2013.

Because my goal is to understand the impact of legal reforms on undocumented Latina/o youth, my analysis is restricted to the 18 respondents who came to the United States as children (the 1.5 generation). Of those respondents, 13 are female and 5 are male with an average age of 21.4 years. At the time of the interviews, 13 were attend-ing junior college or a 4-year college or university, 3 had college degrees and were working, and 2 had dropped out of college but were expecting to return within a year. Most participants came to the United States as children under the age of 10 with the majority coming before the age of 6. In terms of parental educational, some respon-dents’ parents had obtained a high school diploma or technical training at a university in their home country but most did not have more than an elementary school educa-tion. Respondents’ mothers either worked in housekeeping or were at-home moms while their fathers disproportionately worked in janitorial services or construction. Many reported having at least one sibling born in the United States, making them part of the growing number of mixed-status families in the country (Fix & Zimmerman, 1999). Sixteen of the 18 participants were born in Mexico; two were born in Central America. Almost all of the study participants were living, working, or attending school in Colorado at the time of the interviews. Three respondents were living out of state; of those, one respondent had returned to her country of origin a few years prior. Interviews were conducted in English and in person with the exception of the out-of-state interviews, which were conducted via Skype.




The site of this study is important for several reasons. First, Colorado has long been an immigrant destination, though it is often not considered one. According to 2012 Census data, 21% of the state’s population is Latina/o origin (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Latinas/os constitute 33% of the population in Denver County, 42% in Pueblo County, and nearly 29% in Weld County, the site of a large meatpacking plant (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Although it is difficult to determine how many are undocu-mented, estimates suggest nearly 10% of the state’s population is foreign-born, over 6% of those are not citizens, and 55% is of Latino origin and mostly from Mexico (Migration Policy Institute, 2013), showing that Colorado is reemerging as a gateway destination (Waters & Jimenez, 2005). At the same time, despite the pivotal role native-born and naturalized Latinas/os in Colorado played in the 2008 and 2012 presi-dential elections, few are aware of measures such as SB 90, one of the very first “show me your papers” laws in the country and a predecessor to Arizona’s SB 1070. Though SB 90 was repealed in April 20133 in favor of more immigrant friendly policies such as ASSET and a new driver’s license bill, SB 90 is part of the state’s not so distant past. Last, unlike larger urban centers such as Los Angeles or New York where immigrant communities are more visible, have more established enclaves, or offer more opportu-nities for employment in service and lower-wage sectors, Colorado does not have the volume of sectors that can absorb a large proportion of immigrants with lower levels of human capital as the largest sectors such as financial services, energy and natural resources, and telecommunications require at least a high school diploma. Some opportunities exist in lower-wage jobs, especially in housekeeping, janitorial services, and construction in the two largest cities, Denver and Colorado Springs, but the for-eign-born population is mostly employed in factories or meatpacking plants outside of Denver, in agriculture along the eastern plains or western slope of the Rocky Mountains, or the winter tourism industry. In sum, the Latina/o foreign-born population in Colorado is sizeable and expected to continue to grow, though perhaps not as dramati-cally as in the 1990s and early 2000s (Migration Policy Institute, 2013).

Results

Those Nine Numbers

As other studies have found, the realization of being undocumented can be a difficult one, especially for youth who often learn of their status when approaching important milestones in adolescence or young adulthood (Abrego, 2006; Contreras, 2009; Gonzales, 2011; Menjívar, 2006a, 2006b). All of the respondents in this study knew at an early age that they were undocumented but did not realize the implications of their status until they were in high school. In most cases, it was not until their friends and classmates began receiving their driver’s licenses or applying to college and filling out financial aid forms that the realities of being undocumented began to occur to them.

For Lupe, the realization came when she was in high school. Identified as a gifted student in elementary school, Lupe received a scholarship to attend a prestigious pri-vate middle school in her city. Teachers and counselors had high hopes for her and



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expected she would go on to an equally prestigious college. Lupe continued to excel throughout middle and high school but soon learned that attending her dream college would prove difficult given that she could not fill out applications without a social security number. Feeling both hopeful and discouraged, she contacted individuals from the foundation that handled her scholarship to see if they knew of any options for undocumented students to go to college. As Lupe shared, they simply told her, “Oh well, you can always go to community college.” The response devastated Lupe. She said,

That killed me because I didn’t want to go to community college. I had in my head, “I’m gonna go to a huge college and I’m going to do this, you know?” I had it planned so differently in my head that the minute she said, “You can’t afford it, you can go to community college.”

As her voice trailed off Lupe paused for a moment before admitting that she lost inter-est in school as she no longer saw the point in excelling if she was unable to go to college. Despite many setbacks, Lupe persisted and sought out every possible option. She contacted the school’s scholarship foundation again and enlisted her principal to support her cause. In the end, there was little they could do for her without a social security number. Lupe said, “My principal tried but it was the social security number. Damn those nine numbers.”

Most respondents did not share or discuss their status with others, including their parents, nor did they think much about the consequences had they been caught with a false social security number or stopped for a traffic violation. Teresa, for example, was constantly thinking about her status and how it affected her day-to-day life. Though she was attending the satellite campus of a public university, she could only afford to take a few classes at a time and worked as a full-time nanny to support herself. When I asked if she carried a constant fear of being stopped by police and whether or not it was a reminder of her status, she said, “I do and it is. And every time I get back home I thank God that nothing happened and I didn’t get pulled over. I always try to be really careful but it’s still scary.” Like Teresa, respondents could quickly identify the point in their lives when they realized their status would restrict their opportunities such as going to college, but they also noted how taken-for-granted, mundane things such as driving created stress in their lives. For them, it was not just the stress of getting stopped by police for a traffic violation; rather, these daily experiences were constant reminders that not having “those nine numbers,” as Lupe referred to them, limited their opportunities.

Coming Out of the Shadows

With the passage of DACA and ASSET, community activists, undocumented youth, and immigrant allies felt a renewed sense of hope that these measures would signal a shift to more immigrant friendly policies. At the very least, they were optimistic that the reforms would provide new avenues, new educational and economic opportunities




for undocumented Americans. As this section shows, however, when President Obama announced undocumented youth would be eligible to apply for deferred action, responses ranged from happiness and relief to ambivalence and cynicism.

Almost all of the respondents in the study had already applied for DACA at the time of the interviews, and several had already been approved. Respondents who were interviewed shortly after DACA went into effect expressed the most disbelief about the decision and most were still processing what it meant. In several cases, respon-dents described being cautiously optimistic when they received their application in the mail, while others were more cynical. The newness of their DACAmented status (Gonzales & Terriquez, 2013) left many respondents grappling with what it would mean for them given that all they had known before DACA were obstacles and blocked opportunities. Most were happy they were approved or were in the process of receiv-ing approval, but some also expressed ambivalence and questioned how much differ-ent their lives would be.

Evan, a first-year college student, was the most positive about getting DACA approval. He appreciated the potential opportunities and encouraged his siblings who were more cynical to recognize the benefits as well. Despite his optimism, Evan also expressed some uncertainty about his new status:

I wasn’t completely sure what it meant, what it entailed, what it meant I was going to be able to do. So it didn’t quite settle in, but I remember I was with my family and we were just eating dinner and my mom had the TV on and she just burst into tears and my parents were crying and hugging all of us and to me it didn’t really make sense. It didn’t settle in what it meant because you become so used to the mindset of you can’t do things and once that door is open you don’t know what to do. With my sister for example . . . she’s always wanted to go into medicine and I was like “You can do that now, you can get loans, you can get a better job, you can do what you want to do now!” So I feel like for a lot of people, me included, it’s an opening of the door but it takes time to realize, “Oh, there are opportunities now,” but you’re just so used to them not being there that you don’t know where do you even find them, what to do with them, how to navigate that process.

Maria also expressed many emotions about DACA ranging from happiness to uncer-tainty to fear. When she heard President Obama’s announcement in June 2012, she described it as the happiest day of her life. Upon receiving approval several months later, however, it took her some time to process the significance of not only receiving approval but, also, confronting the expectations she placed on herself now that she could live, work, and drive without fear of deportation:

I: So what does this mean for you?Maria: For me it means freedom and independence. I think I always felt growing

up that I always depended on someone or something in order for me to be able to do x, y and z, you know? My car is not under my name, or the insur-ance isn’t under my name, because it can’t be. Some bills are under my name, but then some aren’t because they can’t be. Things like that. And I’ve always wanted to be independent and have everything under my name. I’ve always



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wanted to do what I have to do. So it means that now I can drive and there’s the state patrol behind me and I’m like, “It’s fine! I’m not scared.” But you know, I do have to say that when it first happened and I haven’t talked with anyone about this so I don’t know if anyone else has gone through it, but I started feeling a lot of pressure and fearful and just [takes a long pause] . . . all my life most people didn’t know about my situation so I kept it pretty private. I was never the face of the Dream Act. Then I told some friends that I have my documents now and one of my friends said, “Oh, we should have a coming out party for you” and I used to envision this day thinking, “I’m going to tell the whole world and this is going to be amazing” and then when the day came, all of a sudden I felt like, “No, I don’t want that many people to know.” And then I felt a lot of fear . . . it was that feeling like the walls are gone and now it’s up to me how far I go and there was this very psychological thing. I felt like you don’t have a crutch anymore, whatever goes on with your life from this point on is solely based on the decisions that you make and you better make the right ones (laughs).

For Maria, DACA meant being able to come out of the shadows, which, to her friend, was a reason to celebrate. However, upon further reflection, Maria realized that she did not want the attention, perhaps surprising herself for having this reaction. The ambiva-lence she expressed in the interview stemmed from a lifetime of barriers and disap-pointments related to her immigrant status; once the barriers were removed, Maria realized that she would be thrust into the world and expected to either sink or swim.

Melissa’s reaction to DACA was equally positive at first. At the time, she was working as a nanny and studying for the MCAT. Having graduated from college 2 years prior, DACA was a partial answer to her prayers as it made medical school more of a possibility. She first heard about the deferred action plan from a friend who called her and was “almost crying” and “so happy.” Although she was also happy at first, Melissa questioned whether her life would be much different after receiving approval:

I was excited but I wasn’t. I think I just felt like this basically means I’m not getting deported but what about everything else? I want to go to school, I want to be a doctor, I want to get a good job and to me it felt like this is great but it’s not enough, it’s just not enough. This is too little, too soon, because I’ve been out of school for two years and this is so small compared to what I need to be happening right now. So I was a little negative about it and was just like, “You know, I’ll believe it when I see it.” We’ll see because I knew there was a work permit aspect to it too but in my head I was like, ultimately, I don’t want to get a job. I want to be in school. How is this helping me get into school? It’s just not good enough. Eventually you do come around. I guess that we’re getting at least even this, but it does seem like it’s not that much. I wasn’t really scared of getting deported because I don’t even drive . . . so in my head I’m like, “I’m never doing anything risky that could get me deported, but what is this really going to change in my life?”

After graduating from college, Melissa lingered for 2 years trying to make her dream of attending medical school a reality despite her status. Although DACA would take




her one step closer to realizing that goal, the benefits were not the same since she had already graduated. At the same time, she recognized the potential benefits for other members of her family. Melissa was more positive about the ASSET bill “because it affects both my brothers. I think it makes such a huge difference in making kids realize that it [college] is an option.”

Not Afraid of Getting Deported

Recent reports suggest more than half of those eligible have applied for DACA, the majority of which have received approval (Gonzales & Terriquez, 2013; Singer & Svajlenka, 2013; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2013). In Colorado, nearly 10% of undocumented immigrants had applied as of March 2013 and slightly over 6% have been approved (Singer & Svajlenka, 2013). Among the respondents in this study, all but one had either applied and been approved or had applied and were awaiting approval. Several respondents could best be described as cautiously optimis-tic about what DACA would mean to them. Those who were more cynical felt DACA and ASSET did not go far enough or lamented the lack of opportunities for family members, especially their parents. Some respondents saw the reforms as helpful in terms of being able to work without getting paid “under the table,” but they also pointed out that a solution was needed that would make college more affordable beyond what the ASSET bill provides. Still others expressed concern about the lack of a long-term solution noting that DACA applicants will have to reapply every 2 years, which will not only require bureaucratic hassles and possible delays but will also be very costly.

Vanessa was in the process of applying for DACA when I interviewed her in early 2013. A first-year student at a private university, she was dealing with rigors of adjust-ing to college life while also grappling with the fact that her father had been deported a few years prior, prompting her mom and brother, a U.S. citizen, to return to Mexico as well. She recalled how in high school, while other students were busy deciding which colleges to apply to, she was busy figuring out how she was going to pay for school and cover her living expenses. Though Vanessa considered returning to Mexico, ultimately, she made the decision to finish high school and go on to college. She was relieved there was now a mechanism in place to allow her to stay in the country to work toward her degree, but she feared it was a temporary solution:

It’s only two years and you have to renew it every two years and then what happens if in the next four years Obama is taken out of office and somebody else comes in and they could easily take that away. What’s going to happen then? Am I going to be able to work? Am I going to have to go back to Mexico? I’m crossing my fingers for something [comprehensive immigration reform] to happen this year or in the next for years.

Yesenia’s cynicism toward DACA had to do with the emphasis on work permits rather than expanding opportunities such as those that would make higher education more accessible for students like her. This was a particular sticking point because she



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had hoped to attend a prestigious college or university after graduating from high school but was unable to afford tuition at her schools of choice. Disillusioned, she applied and was accepted to a public university in another state where tuition for inter-national students was more affordable. Her father paid tuition for one full year despite the financial burden it placed on the family. Wanting to help support herself, Yesenia applied to be a resident assistant and informed the RA office staff of her status, which they assured her would not be an issue. After interviewing for the position and being offered the job, she was preparing to attend an orientation session when she was asked to give her social security number. Unable to provide one, Yesenia lost the job and eventually dropped out of school altogether. Even though she had received deferred action, she remained disillusioned:

I wasn’t as excited as other people because I wish it was something more like a help for school rather than a work permit. A work permit is awesome because I’m working, you know? But I just wish it was something more to help me go to school, something like, “Hey, you can go to this school, we’ll help you. You can get FAFSA as well as everybody else,” but it wasn’t that.

Another respondent, Viri, was eligible for DACA but was one of the few who waited several months before applying. A former student activist in the immigrant rights community, Viri had been part of an organization that assisted DACA applicants in filling out their paperwork. She explained her hesitation by saying,

I was wondering about it, I was very skeptical. I did a bunch of research on it and I attended a bunch of workshops on it. I was helping people fill out the paperwork but not filling it out myself.

Part of her skepticism stemmed from concerns about how the information would be used once applications were processed and partly because she saw it solely as a politi-cal move on President Obama’s part. She explained, “You’re throwing us a political bone. It’s cool but it doesn’t fix it [the immigration system].” She eventually applied after a traffic ticket made her realize that lawful presence was preferable to her undoc-umented status. Furthermore, Viri saw it as an opportunity to help her dad and his business. She said, “You know, it’s like, well, if it’s at least 2 years, might as well take advantage. If they’re going to use us [for political purposes], we’re going to use them.”

Viri also expressed reservations that DACA did not have any provisions about financial aid for undocumented students, and despite the fact that she was attending a public university where ASSET would make tuition more affordable, the expense was still prohibitive. As a result, she was taking a few classes each semester and supporting herself with a side business and internships. She realized it was going to take her sev-eral years to earn her degree:

I think there’s so many students that want to go to college or that have been wanting to go to college and just can’t because [of] money. And I mean, even though we have in-state




tuition we still don’t have all the scholarships, we’re not going to have financial aid. It’s the only thing that’s stopping us is money. I feel that I would have graduated by now since I’ve been going to school for six years on this campus.

Of all the respondents in the study, Tania was the only person who had not applied for DACA and expressed no intention of doing so immediately. A college graduate, she worked as a community organizer and cleaned houses 2 days a week to support herself. At the time of the interview, Tania’s mother had just been issued a court date due to a deportation order, so she was understandably apprehensive talking about her status. Her mother was adamant that she apply for DACA but Tania refused because she said it was a token gesture. When asked to explain, Tania said,

I think it’s crap, first of all. I’ve been in the U.S. for a long time and been doing all this stuff and I was at the [Obama campaign office] when we were doing the hunger strike [to bring attention to the plight of undocumented families]. It didn’t seem good enough for all I had been doing and my family’s not included and my mom’s the one in deportation proceedings. She’s the one who needs something right now, not me. I have a job, I graduated college. I don’t need a work permit. I work already, you know?

Tania lamented DACA’s lack of provisions for her mom and saw it as a means to pan-der to Latina/o voters. She also expressed concern that, by supporting DACA, the immigrant rights movement would lose steam, weakening the campaigns she had taken part in, which had been advocating for reform that would allow families like hers to stay together. She elaborated,

With this immigration reform bill and DACA, once people have that, they kind of stop fighting. They kind of settle and I think as a community organizer I can’t have that because there’s a still a lot of stuff going out there that I need people to be mad about, to be able to speak their minds.

Despite Tania’s decision not to apply, she was determined to help her younger brother apply for DACA and ASSET when he eventually graduated from high school. She further acknowledged that, while she viewed the policy as an attempt to placate peo-ple, she would “probably” apply at some point, but not right away.

Several respondents commented about the financial barriers of attending college and the inability to find good-paying jobs. They acknowledged that higher education was the stepping stone toward economic prosperity but also recognized that, without legal status, they would not get the same returns to education as their native-born peers. Others expressed concern about their long-term status: whether or not deferred action would be eliminated, whether or not they would be able to afford reapplication fees in 2 years, and whether or not their family members would eventually get relief. In other words, respondents were concerned about the remaining uncertainties associ-ated with their status which brought them only slightly closer to legal on the contin-uum between legality and illegality (Menjívar, 2006b). Respondents were critical of legal reforms for other reasons as well. To respondents like Yesenia, Teresa, and,



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especially, Viri and Tania, DACA was little more than a political device used by President Obama to drum up Latina/o votes prior to the 2012 presidential election. Although they were the most dissenting voices, responses from Maria, Melissa, and Vanessa also reveal the ambivalence felt by several participants who were grappling with what their new status meant to and for them. Furthermore, while several took a “something is better than nothing” approach to DACA and ASSET, there was also skepticism about their long-term prospects. Rather than worrying about what would happen 2 or 4 years from now, some respondents preferred to focus on the present not-ing that they no longer feared deportation,4 if they ever did at all, or vowed to concen-trate on entering or finishing school after receiving DACA approval.

For older respondents who were at the end of their college careers or beyond col-lege age, their perceptions of DACA were more negative, perhaps because they would reap fewer rewards than those who were just starting college. Their critiques were based on the realization that the road to opportunity would be a bumpier one. Looking into to the future, then, they saw DACA as a short-term solution to a long-term prob-lem. As a few respondents noted, having access to in-state tuition, being able to obtain a driver’s license, or apply for a job were steps in the right direction, but were not enough to change their status or make it easier to obtain citizenship. The frustration the latter group of respondents expressed can perhaps best be summarized by Teresa, who said, “I’m not afraid of getting deported. I’m afraid of not getting citizenship.”

Discussion and Conclusion

The undocumented youth who participated in this study were very eloquent, reflective, and thoughtful when discussing their experiences. Several of them emphasized that DACA was not ideal but better than nothing for the time being. Others recognized the limitations of the measure, such as the lack of provisions for those who are not college bound or are over 31years old. Respondents were also critical of the lack of relief or opportunities for their parents and members of their mixed-status families. Also at issue was the realization that DACA would allow them to apply for social security numbers and driver’s licenses, but it did nothing to assist them with the cost of higher education, even at public universities, or make them eligible for financial aid. Thus, while respon-dents acknowledged that the barriers to attending college were mostly eliminated, the barriers of paying for college remained. For those who had already graduated from college, blocked opportunities came in the form of limited job prospects due to a lack of relevant work experience or not being able to find employment commensurate with their level of education. Respondents also knew that deferred action would not auto-matically make a college degree more affordable or desirable jobs more attainable; in essence, they recognized that the measure was not a fast-track to upward mobility.

Although reforms such as DACA and ASSET have presented opportunities for the incorporation of immigrant youth and eliminated concerns about deportation, the poli-cies’ limitations still require them to defer their educational and occupational goals and, consequently, their prospects for upward mobility. These reforms now make it possible for immigrant youth to live, work, and receive a college education, but the




absence of a permanent mechanism virtually guarantees they will remain in an ambig-uous space between legality and illegality (Menjívar, 2006a, 2006b). Moreover, the concomitant effects of a struggling economy, the shift to a service-based economy, and global forces compelling migration to the United States as well as federal-, state-, and local-level responses to immigration suggest the process of mobility will likely stag-nate for today’s immigrant youth (Zhou, 1999).

Proponents of deferred action argue that it is the best and only option currently available to undocumented youth. If so, pro-reform advocates must continue to push the conversation in the direction of reforms that make it possible for immigrants to obtain citizenship and to provide avenues for family members as well. Given the growing number of young people living in mixed-status families (Fix & Zimmerman, 1999; Fix, Zimmerman, & Passel, 2001), this will continue to be a pressing issue in immigrant households. For this reason, future research ought to attend to the ways in which legal reforms such as DACA and ASSET might be perpetuating caste systems in mixed-status families based on differences in individual members’ eligibility. Understanding youths’ perceptions about the educational and occupational opportuni-ties afforded by these reforms and the effect they will have on their trajectories across the life course is important as well. Lastly, research comparing the experiences of undocumented youth in new and old destinations and in shifting political landscapes is warranted given vast differences in states’ interpretation of immigration policies, especially in terms of educational access for undocumented youth (Olivas, 2012). As the case of Colorado shows, states’ responses to immigrant communities have implica-tions not only for their day-to-day experiences but for their long-term livelihood as well. Although the current positive context of reception in Colorado may result in more favorable outcomes for undocumented youth, state-level reforms mean very lit-tle without federal reforms. Without the latter, undocumented youth will continue to linger in a perpetual, liminal state. Studying the factors that affect how local- and state-level elected officials respond to federal efforts will go a long way toward understand-ing the contextual factors that give rise to policies that support or hinder immigrant incorporation and mobility as well as the consequences of state-level responses to immigration that are at odds with federal-level ones.

Given the recency of these reforms, it is too soon to know the long-term effects on the educational and occupational trajectories of undocumented Latina/o youth, espe-cially given that several respondents were still awaiting DACA approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the time of the interviews. Consequently, a second wave of interviews is planned with the undocumented respondents as well as their immediate family members to assess the long-term effects of these reforms. At the time of this writing, progress toward comprehensive immigration reform has come to a halt. Although national-level electoral pressures in the Republican Party may open up possibilities for reform, anti-immigrant sentiment within the GOP, combined with the threat of primary election contests, makes reform more difficult. Even if immigra-tion reform were to happen, it is unlikely any compromise would include a path to citi-zenship for non-DREAMers. Thus, DACA and ASSET provide some relief for now, but they do not alleviate the barriers that make higher education prohibitive, eliminate



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undocumented youths’ liminal status, or provide any assurance that families will remain intact.

Acknowledgment

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of the article. I am also grateful to participants of the “Latino Communities in Old and New Destination Cities” conference for their feedback and to the editors, Elizabeth Vaquera, Roberto Gonzales, and, especially, Elizabeth Aranda, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a University of Denver Professional Research Opportunities for Faculty (PROF) grant.

Notes

1. Undocumented students will no longer have to pay nonresidency tuition, making tuition rates at public colleges and universities comparable to those of Colorado residents (State of Colorado, 2013).

2. SB 90 went into effect May 1, 2006. It was repealed in April 2013.3. The Community and Law Enforcement Act was signed in April 2013, effectively repealing

SB 90. The bill had bipartisan support in the state as well as from law enforcement offi-cials who felt SB 90 was eroding trust between law enforcement personnel and immigrant communities. Immigrant rights activists, who were at the center of the effort, had been working toward its repeal since it was passed on May1, 2006 (Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, 2013).

4. That is not to suggest that undocumented youth have nothing to fear. In fact, stories of young people being stopped and detained for minor traffic violations are common, includ-ing a well-known and highly publicized local case of a young man who was stopped on his way back from a grocery store and was placed in deportation proceedings as a result. The point here is only that the fear of deportation is not an overarching concern in respondents’ lives.

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Author Biography

Lisa M. Martinez is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver. Her research examines the impact of immigration policies on the social, economic, and political well-being of Latina/o and immgirant communi-ties. She has published in Social Forces, Mobilization, and Latino Studies.



Documents

Dreams Deferred: The Impact of Legal Reforms on Undocumented Latino Youth