This story was originally published on L.A. Youth. 

Author's name not given to protect their identity. 

I’ve always worked hard in school because I want to go to college and be successful. But because I’m not a citizen, my hard work could be for nothing. My parents don’t have the money to pay for college and I can’t get federal financial aid because I don’t have a Social Security number. In October, Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Dream Act, which will allow undocumented students like me to get financial help to attend public colleges in California. This made me feel hopeful for my future. However, the state Dream Act doesn’t provide a path to citizenship. Even if I graduate from college, would I have to work in a low-wage job? Will my status prevent me from obtaining my dream job as a journalist?

The following was originally broadcast on 11/12/11, WABE-FM Atlanta

By: Aaron Choi

I immigrated to the United States from South Korea when I was twelve years old. My first fast food experience was a few days after I arrived. I strolled into a local Burger King to try out their famous burgers. After a short glance at the menu, I ordered what looked to be the most American meal the store had to offer: the number six combo. A rich steakhouse burger with fries and a large coke.

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

The presidential campaigning has brought the debate about immigration reform into hyper focus recently. But for some, the debate is too narrow, focusing only on DREAM Act legislation when around 50 percent of undocumented youth don't finish high school, according to Pablo Paredes, founder of the organization 67 Sueños (67 Dreams). Paredes said that focusing on the DREAM Act as the main narrative in the immigration reform debate leaves out 67 percent of undocumented youth.

His group, based in the Bay Area in California, is small and he works with just seven students at Oakland public schools between the ages of 15 - 18. Four of them are undocumented, and the other three come from "mixed-status" families. Their goal is to change the immigration conversation from focusing only on the exceptionally talented immigrants who "deserve" legalization, and instead acknowledge that every undocumented young person deserves a path to legalization. In California, the DREAM Act has moved along further than any other state in the union, and just recently passed part 1 of a state DREAM Act.

Paredes and his group organized a huge public art display in San Francisco on the wall of a building in an abandoned lot and Turnstyle spoke with Paredes about the project.

Turnstyle: What does 67 Sueños stand for?

Paredes: 67 Sueños is a group that supports the radical notion that every undocumented person, whether they go to college or not, has a dream worth pursuing. We focus on youth who are not on the pathway to college, to create pathways for them to legalize.

Turnstyle: Where did the idea for the images in the mural come from? Did famous artists help?

Paredes: We gathered stories. Stories are an important way to change dialogue and legislation. We partnered with NPR’s StoryCorps. They have a project that tries to tell stories of Latinos. They were very excited to tell stories of undocumented youth especially those not on the path to college. We did 21 interviews with undocumented youth out of Oakland public high schools... Even if they have trouble in high school, they still have rights. We thought how do we get these 21, 40-minute interviews in the news, and use them as a way to launch our work? We kicked around ideas and focused on the idea of public art. Everyone likes the idea of a mural, they don’t have to pay to see it and everyone has access to it. We listened to each interview. We sat there and picked out themes, struggles, and dreams that were most common and that captured the migrant experience in these communities. We ended up with a 15-page brainstorm of stories. We gave this brainstorm to a very talented artist, Pancho Pescador. He rendered our vision and our brainstorm into a cohesive piece of art. The artist was also undocumented when he came to this country, so he’s personally connected to the issue and he works with Oakland youth. He really understood.

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

President Obama recently announced that certain undocumented immigrants can be granted low-priority status for deportation, including DREAM Act-eligible students (as well as those with long-standing ties to the country). This announcement struck one undocumented person in particular -- Higinio Agaton, recent graduate of the California State University of Sacramento (CSUS), who awaits his deportation hearing this Thursday. The announcement means a glimmer of hope for Agaton to remain in the country.

I spoke with Agaton, who told me how he ended up in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

During spring break, Agaton said he was at a bar just two blocks from his apartment with some friends. They had all been drinking. When they came out of the bar, local police watched them get in their car and drive home. Unluckily for Agaton, he had a broken tail light. The cops pulled him over and asked for his driver’s license. Agaton said he told them he didn’t have one, and was asked to step out of the vehicle, handcuffed, and taken away.

He described what happened next:

I was taken to a county jail. I got a DUI. Usually, everyone gets arrested and then released after they sober up. I wasn’t.

They called my name and I was transferred to a new cell. There was a hold on me so that I wouldn’t be released. They gave me a uniform as an inmate. I was there for a night. Then they transferred me to the fifth floor. It’s the Mexican place. There are two different sides -- the East and the West side. If you’re Mexican, you’re put with the Sureños. I was there for two more nights.

I didn’t sleep, eat, or s**t the whole time. I wasn’t used to that. I couldn’t stop thinking about my situation, what would happen next. I was going to graduate in June, this was March. I was thinking about the worst case scenario. I didn’t have anything to prove that I had an education.

The following was broadcast on 4/9/11, WABE-FM, Atlanta.

By Hai Nguyen

My father and I make routine trips to the grocery store with similar outcomes.  We always stand out.  On our last visit, my dad didn’t seem to mind that we had two more items than allowed in the express checkout lane. “No one is counting” he sharply said to me in our native Vietnamese tongue.

After the slow process of watching him swipe each item across the self-service scanner -- waiting for each beep -- the amount of our bill shows up on the screen: 21 dollars and 43 cents.  Of course, rather than using a credit card, my father pulls cash from his wallet to feed into the machine. Then, he starts counting the exact number of pennies he needs, as the people in line behind us start to squirm. When he realizes he is seven cents short, he starts to yell at the machine. I knew we shouldn’t have bought so much tuna fish.

But as my father stood there, making a scene in the grocery store, I reminded myself that only five years ago he was growing his own food as a farmer in Vietnam. He left that behind for me, so that I could grow up in America. And his struggles in the grocery store are just another part of his adjustment to our new life.

Sure, it may have looked like my father was senile at that moment, but to me, all I saw was a very loving and amazing father.

Previously on WABE:

* Prom and School Spirit: A Culture Shock For French Student

* Don't Lean On Me For Technology

* What Money Can't Buy

This is a topic close to home for me because my grandma’s husband, my step-grandfather is from Mexico and he came over here more than 35 years ago. He’s been working, taking care of his family, and now that all this is going through he might be sent back to Mexico. My grandma really needs his help and support. I just think these laws are very unfair and inhumane to our society, especially in America. There was the American Dream for a lot of years, and now it has kind of died with all these laws that have been going through. Read more...

President Barack Obama released a federal budget proposal this week.  Here are some items relevant to young people.

Education:
Despite a proposed freeze on non-defense discretionary spending, President Obama's budget continues to fund programs like Race to the Top, and asks for $77.4 billion for education. Race to the Top is a fund for innovative educational reform. For FY 2012, the proposed funds will be awarded to individual school districts with the best plans for school reform, as opposed to states. This way, even if the state decides not to apply for the money, an individual district could still be eligible.

In addition, Obama would like to increase spending for public schools and maintain the Pell Grant fund at $5,550 per college student. But as a cost savings, the president's proposal limits the grants a student can receive in a year, making many students unable to get summer school aid if they receive a Pell Grant during the school year. The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduates and students applying to higher education programs.

Title X:
President Obama plans to allot $327 million to maintain funding for Title X, the Family Planning program.  According to the department of Health and Human Services, Title X is the only federal grant program dedicated to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related health services. The more controversial aspect of Title X provides access to contraceptive services, supplies and information, and especially to low-income families.

Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides family planning to low-income women, and currently receives $75 million from Title X.  Opponents don’t want that money funding abortions.  According to the New York Times, the House of Representatives has proposed cutting the entire Title X budget which would eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Originally published and broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio.

By Brenda

Editor's note: MPR News has agreed not to use Brenda's last name because she fears deportation.

A Minneapolis teen who was carried across the U.S.-Mexico border a dozen years ago hopes Congress will pass the federal DREAM Act so she can live and work legally in the country she considers home.

The Democratic-controlled Congress plans to make one more attempt to pass the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act -- the DREAM Act -- this week.  If passed, it would give children of immigrants not legally in the United States a path to citizenship if they graduate from high school and complete two years of college or military service. It has support among many Democrats, but most Republicans oppose the DREAM Act, saying it amounts to amnesty.

Brenda tells what it's like to live in the United States illegally.

NO TIME TO BE A TEENAGER

When people ask me where I'm from, I say Minnesota. I am from here. I came from Mexico when I was 7. I was carried over the border. It was nighttime, and I remember the narrow path along the cliffs, and a rattlesnake.

I'm 19 now. I live in Minneapolis with my mom, my stepdad, my older brother and his son, and my little brother and sister. I help take care of the little kids, and I work second shift in a factory. I don't have a lot of time to be a teenager or to have fun.

I had to leave high school a month before graduation this spring, because my family needed help paying the bills.  My mom brought my brother and me here because she was a single mother and she saw a better life for us here.

"Maybe not for me," said my mom, "because I had to work, work, work. But I liked that every day you used to come home and learn more English every day at school." People say immigration is a mistake. But I thank my mom for bringing me here. 

"In Mexico, I was a cook," said my mom. "Here I became a janitor. I was proud to be [one]. But it ended."  My mom was one of 1,200 janitors who lost their jobs in a "silent raid" at ABM, a janitorial service company in Minneapolis last year. She didn't have the right papers so she lost a job she'd had for 12 years. That had a big effect on our lives.  I want things to change for families like mine. We've been here a long time. We pay taxes. But we're invisible.

In March I took a bus from Minnesota to Washington D.C. to attend a big immigration rally. As we walked to the National Mall near the Capitol, Latino roofers called out to us, "We can't be there, we have to work, but lift up your voices for us."  At the rally, President Obama had a videotaped message for the crowd.

"I pledge to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year on this important issue," the president said. "You know as well as I do that it won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight."

I've been waiting for this. Every time on the news they say, "Oh, they're going to start working on immigration reform." But then we hear, "No, something else came up."  So I have to get -- I'm sorry for the word -- really crappy, bad jobs.

I used to work for this restaurant, and the lady made me work long hours for low pay. I used to clean tables, take orders, clean dishes, clean bathrooms, clean the floors and back again. I told her, "I can't do this." She told me to take a day off. I took it. And she never took my calls again and never paid me for all that work. Equalness is everything.

There is nationwide debate around the rights of undocumented youth as they apply for college.  On November 15, the California Supreme Court upheld the law that allows undocumented immigrants to be eligible for in-state tuition at California state colleges and universities. The California law currently requires a student to attend an in-state high school for three years to be eligible for in-state tuition.  

Recently, the Georgia Board of Regents ruled against undocumented students, deciding that in 2011, illegal students will not be allowed into their university system.  

States are rapidly taking this issue to court and arriving at different conclusions.  While the California ruling is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is unlikely to be accepted because of the impact it would have on other states. Texas and Nebraska are among those that have similar laws. In-state tuition can save California college students as much as $12,000, according to the New York Times. 

Kris Kobach argued the California case on behalf of the legal citizens who reside outside of California and are denied reduced tuition, claiming that this is unfair.  Both Kobach, as well as University of California professors, and legal scholars were quoted in the New York Times saying that this case is definitely not the last we will hear of the issue.  

On September 18, 2010 the Coalition for Immigration, Race and Social Justice held the Back 2 School Summit at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM. Read more...