Citrus College is offering new support services to undocumented students with its new Dream Resource Center. The single-staff operation is led by UndocuLiaison Amayrani Ochoa Almeida under the Student Life and Leadership Development division established in January.
“For the undocumented community especially, it’s difficult to trust someone initially because a lot of times they are afraid to disclose their status,” Almeida said.
Almedia’s role as an UndocuLiason is to provide outreach to undocumented students.
The Citrus College website states that the Dream Resource Center aims to increase access to higher education, retention and completion among undocumented students. They provide services in the form of programming and events.
Almeida said that although it’s hard to tell how many undocumented students attend Citrus College, there’s a possible total of 771, which would make up about 4% of the student population.
She said this approximation comes from the 555 students who indicated “other/unknown” citizenship and the 216 AB540-eligible students. AB540 offers non-resident students an exemption from paying non-resident tuition.
While neither of those statistics imply that the students are undocumented, Almeida said it’s a possibility.
Almeida said the Dream Resource Center puts together workshops and presentations about financial aid information, applying for internships and scholarships and information on transferring for undocumented students.
“Although these services exist elsewhere on campus through our other departments, we specifically relate the content to the undocumented student experience.”
Almeida welcomes students to schedule appointments with her to discuss qualifying for in-state tuition, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and referrals to community resources such as immigration legal services.
“There are additional barriers that they have to go through to access certain things, for example, qualifying for in-state tuition,” Almeida said. “Even if a student has lived in the state of California for many years, they are still considered non-resident for tuition purposes.”
The Dream Resource Center also provides an ally training called UndocuAlly training. Almeida said this training is open to any student, staff, faculty or administrator at Citrus.
“We go over the challenges that undocumented students face in pursuing higher education, different laws and policies that affect our undocmented students and how to support our undocumented students effectively,” Almeida said.
Almeida said this training should make someone feel prepared to sit down with an undocumented student if they call upon them for support.
Almeida said a lot of events are planned for this semester and the best way to stay updated is through the department’s Instagram, @citrusstudentlife.
