As concerns about ICE raids and deportations continue to grow among immigrant communities across the country, a Latine student organization said now is a crucial time to increase resources for DePaul’s undocumented students.
Members of Movimiento Estudiantes de Solidaridad y Apoyo (MESA), or Student Movement for Solidarity and Support, have been pushing for the creation of an office for undocumented students since the group was founded at the university in February of 2022.
But their idea has not come to fruition yet.
The proposed office would provide resources and support for the population that faces unique challenges given their immigration status, according to Rosalinda Cano, the senior advisor at MESA.
“It’s not enough to just say we will accept you into our institution and take your money,” said Emily Vallejo, one of MESA’s founders.
Vallejo believes DePaul could provide free legal services and job fairs in an effort to welcome and protect those students without legal status.
“It should also be… a safe space for students that are undocumented in a country that is cracking down on undocumented folks living here,” Vallejo said.
According to José Perales, the interim vice president of Institutional Diversity and Equity at DePaul, the Division of Student Affairs was handling the request for a physical space for the student office. However, it is currently unclear which department of the institution, if any, is handling the request for the student group.
In a recent rendering of the restructuring of DePaul’s Cultural and Resource Centers (CRCs) for next year at O’Connell Hall in DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus, an office for undocumented students was not included.
In a statement to La DePaulia, Dania Matos, the Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Belonging, said that she plans on meeting with MESA in coming weeks. She said she looks forward to partnering with them and other DePaul students “to learn about their work and their hopes.”
“While we are in a different moment now as a country and a university than we were just one year ago, we stand strong in our mission. We will continue to work toward stronger coordination across the university for more robust support services for all our students,” Matos said.
Cano said that she had voiced MESA’s request in early October during a listening session about the expansion plans for cultural centers at O’Connell Hall in DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus.
“I felt like I was left with more questions than answers as to what was going to happen next with our space on campus,” said Cano. She attended the listening session at the Latinx Cultural Center. “The plans from my perspective didn’t seem to reflect the vision students had when we had talked about expanding the cultural centers.”
Cano said she has noticed that undocumented students are often sent to the Latinx Cultural Center for support.
“It gives this false narrative that undocumented students automatically equate to Latine. We wanted to make sure undocumented students had a space to have resources available but still felt secure in the space,” Cano said.
Cano said that she hopes members of DePaul’s administration can follow through with providing support through DePaul’s Cultural and Resource Centers.
“More often than not, we’re supported verbally but not in the way that we see words lead to lasting action,” Cano said.
After receiving feedback from students at the listening sessions, the O’Connell expansion floor plans for the restructuring of the cultural centers are now being reassessed to incorporate student feedback, said Courtney James, the director of Student Involvement.
“We heard loud and clear that we needed to go back and work on some things,” James said.
However, MESA’s vision for an office specifically for undocumented students comes with reservations from some leaders in the university.
“We need personnel support even before we need a physical space. I think providing a physical space without personnel support is not giving the appropriate support that we need to our undocumented students,” James said.
She is also concerned that the office could cause harm by storing student information and tracking office usage, an issue MESA echoed.
The safety of the students is protected by the institution’s protocol regarding immigration agents on campus.
According to the FAQ related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence at DePaul, nonpublic areas of DePaul, such as residence halls and faculty offices, are not accessible to ICE officers. Students or employees are not required to answer if an ICE officer asks whether an individual works at DePaul or is present that day.
The Cultural Centers, where the office would be located near, are considered limited access, nonpublic areas, according to DePaul Newsroom’s Senior Manager of media relations Russell Dorn.
A senior student in MESA, who asked to remain anonymous due to their legal status, said that the group has not gotten any new information in the institution’s plan to establish the new office.
They added that students must go out of their way to get a chance to talk to administrators about their requests, which can take a toll on them and their schedules. However, they feel that MESA’s work will benefit the DePaul community in the long run.
“In this current state of affairs, we have to take care of each other. And unfortunately, advocating and involving yourself in activism right now is really difficult,” the MESA student said. “As an organization, we just want to protect everyone.”
One DePaul junior film student, who asked to not be identified due to their legal status, said that they would like having an office for undocumented students.
“It would be great to have someone to talk to,” they said. “I don’t have a lot of information about where I can go or who I can talk to or where it’s safe. It would be really nice to have an office where you can go and figure out what to do.”
The film student said that being undocumented has hindered their ability to get financial aid and find work. Student advocates in MESA also advocated for financial and employment assistance for undocumented students while pushing for an office space.
“The biggest downfall to us is that we don’t get (federal) financial aid… We can’t apply for any of that, so that’s a big shot to us,” the film student said.
Typically, the film student tries to find external scholarships on a quarterly basis to cover their tuition.
MESA also hopes to increase the amount of money applied to the Monarch scholarship fund to provide more scholarship opportunities for undocumented students.
The Monarch Butterfly scholarship was created to support returning non-FAFSA eligible students, according to DePaul’s Division of Student Affairs website.
“I have to work twice, maybe thrice as hard as other students just to be where I’m at, especially at getting a job,” the anonymous film student said. “There’s been many times where there’s many jobs that I would love to do… but I couldn’t do them due to status. And it’s just a shame. I’m no different than anybody else. It’s just a few papers that I am missing.”
