Undocumented Students

Undocumented students are often excluded from the discourse on student diversity in education. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 11.7 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, and approximately 1.7 million are youths below the age of 18. As these adolescents come of age, 65,000 graduate from high school, and approximately 10,000 to 13,000 continue on to higher education each year. Undocumented students are immigrants who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents and do not hold a nonimmigrant or immigrant visa or have overstayed their visas and become out-of-status. Most undocumented youth entered the United States before school age and completed their K–12 education in the United States. Thus, few have ties to their country of birth, and most intend to remain in the United States well into adulthood. Although a large majority of undocumented students are Latina/o, many come from other racial and ethnic communities. There are more than a million Asian undocumented immigrants in the United States, with Asian students representing approximately 45% of the undocumented student population on some college campuses.

In school settings, undocumented students are often grouped with international students or students perceived to have similar needs. They may share commonalities, but this practice can overlook or even exacerbate educational disparities associated with their status. Unlike undocumented students, international students have demonstrated the financial means to pay nonresident tuition, are authorized to work legally, and are less likely to have been raised in the United States. While it is difficult for undocumented students to gain international student status, international students may become undocumented if they violate the terms of their visas, creating grounds for detention and/or deportation. Schools are required to report enrollment of international students to government agencies, while no such regulation exists for undocumented students.

In recent decades, undocumented students have gained some legal rounds. In the 1982 Plyler v. Doe case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot deny undocumented students access to public K–12 education. However, no federal laws exist regarding access to postsecondary education. Vague federal policies have led individual states to establish policies related to access and affordability of higher education for undocumented students. As of October 2011, 12 states—California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington—allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. While this offsets a portion of the financial burden, the fact that undocumented students cannot access any form of government aid still poses significant barriers that deter most from pursuing or persisting through higher education.