DACA Scholarship Fund: A Note of Thanks

DACA is what launched this season of my career. When it was announced in 2012, I had the unique opportunity to assist our neighbors in being among the first wave of applicants. It was exhilarating. I held hands with friends from my neighborhood who had struggled for years with being undocumented as we cried tears of hope and relief. I would see young people in my neighborhood I had helped and they would excitedly stop me to tell me about their new job or show me their driver license. Helping people I Ioved deeply apply for DACA is what confirmed my vision of Camino Immigration Services. 

I often say, with 100% sincerity, that the ecosystem of my life is dependent on DACA recipients. I rarely have a day where I don’t interact with someone in my personal life who has DACA or is eligible for DACA. It’s beyond an issue to me. It’s deeply and profoundly personal. 

So when the previous administration attempted to shut down DACA in 2017, I ordered a bunch of pizza and invited everyone I knew who was impacted directly to dinner and within hours, my house was packed with some of my favorite people. Friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, leaders, image bearers who had never asked to be political pawns. The weight of their stories, their pain, their fear, the injustice they bore the brunt of...it never left me. 

The last three and a half years has been a rollercoaster of memos, executive orders, and court rulings that left a whole slew of folks shut out of the opportunity to apply for DACA. We’ve marched, called congress, written postcards, called the white house, protested, got arrested, voted...left it on all the court for DACA. The uncertainty has been traumatic for so many. Finally, two months ago, USCIS was forced, by a federal judge, to fully reopen DACA. 

This happened to be right before my 35th birthday so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to launch my dream of a scholarship fund that would cover the filing fee ($495) for a couple new DACA clients of Camino. I originally set my goal at $1500, thinking I could at least cover the cost for 3 clients. In less than a month, nearly $9,000 came in. As the donations kept coming, I was continually blown away by the generosity of friends and strangers who shared the vision of helping as many as possible to secure that work permit and take their first step out of the shadows. 

I decided from the beginning, I would offer the scholarships on a first come, first serve basis. I didn’t want to bother with some kind of arbitrary merit system or try to determine who was the most deserving, whatever that even means. I made the safe assumption that whoever came into our office could probably use the extra $495 and nothing else really needed to matter. 

Oftentimes, even well-meaning advocates like to prop up the “good” immigrant story, as if to say, “See, they get good grades, they work really hard, so they deserve to be treated with dignity.” The problem with this is that it’s actually extremely harmful and goes against truth we find in scripture. Immigrants are image bearers. Full stop. It doesn’t matter if they get straight A’s or if they flunked out of high school. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been the perfect citizen or if they have a criminal record. It doesn’t matter if they work 3 jobs or are unemployed. There is no beginning or end to their dignity. It just is. 

I was reminded of this deep and profound truth as I told each of our first 18 new DACA clients that they didn’t need to worry about the $495 fee. From the high school senior athlete whose mom cried out of relief because they were going to have to use some of their rent money to cover it, to the two sisters who have been working odd jobs since they graduated high school to save up for college, to the 30 something dad of 3 who missed the opportunity the first time and was going to fight like hell to get a work permit this time so he can finally begin to pull his family out of poverty...each so different and yet, all so deserving. From the college freshman activist who was finally seeing the fruit of her advocacy, to the sweet 16-year-old who doesn’t even fully know what this means for him, to the young adult who had to overcome major learning disabilities to get their high school diploma...all so different, all so deserving. 

If you gave to the DACA Scholarship fund, I want you to know that your gift has an impact that we haven’t even fully realized yet. Yes, you helped to alleviate a real financial burden and barrier in real time for some pretty incredible people. But also, you made an investment into their future stories. A work permit and protection from deportation does not define them or even fully set them free from the weight of our broken immigration system, but it does change their current trajectory. It means a fair wage, a college education, a dream job, less anxiety, a possibility to travel, a sense of peace and hope that wasn’t there before. 

So all this to say thank you. On behalf of my silly birthday request, my staff, and our amazing DACA clients, thank you. 

And if you want to know what you can do next- get on the phone and tell your members of congress to create a path to citizenship for DACA recipients before summer. They are all so different, but they are all so deserving.

Thank you,

Bethany Anderson, Director of Camino Immigration Services