'DREAMer' scholarship opens doors for undocumented students locally

02.04.2014

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While immigration reform is sorted out in Washington, a scholarship is making higher education more accessible for DREAMers in the Rio Grande Valley.

"It offers the DREAMers of the Rio Grande Valley the opportunity to achieve their dreams and go on to study higher education," chief of staff at the University of Texas Pan American Lisa Cardoza said.

UTPA and South Texas College were both chosen as institutions to partner with THEDREAM.US.

The organization provides financial assistance to undocumented students at 12 colleges across the country.

"This is my home," Tania Chavez, consultant for La Union De Pueblo Entero, said. "My values were created in the United States, what I believe in was created in the U.S."

Former DREAMer Tania Chavez attended UTPA.

Back in 2004 she said there was little knowledge of what funds were available for undocumented students.

"They told me, 'you cannot get financial aid,'" she said.

Since she is not one to give up, she found some financial assistance and paid the rest out of her own pocket.

Now she has two master degrees and a bachelor's degree, but because of her legal status, she can't get any job she wants.

It is the reason she finds pride in her current job at L.U.P.E., an organization that helps undocumented immigrants navigate the naturalization process.

"I was hoping the DREAN Act would pass by 2010 so I enrolled in my second master's degree and then the DREAM Act failed once again," she said.

She is now stuck in limbo with 11 million other undocumented immigrants.

In the Fall of 2013, more than 700 undocumented students enrolled at UTPA, an increase from the previous year.

Chavez worries what jobs will be available to those students when they graduate, but feels making higher education accessible to DREAMers, is a step in
the right direction.

"I'm glad that other students will have the help I didn't have," Chavez said.

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