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Caleb Kim, Lost American DREAM of Undocumented Students: Understanding the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, Children & Schools, Volume 35, Issue 1, January 2013, Pages 55–58, https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cds041
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According to recent immigration data, approximately 5.5 million children in the United States under the age of 18 live in undocumented households, and between 1.5 and 2 million of them are undocumented students (American Immigration Council, 2011; Kossoudji, 2009; National Immigration Law Center [NILC], 2009). These undocumented students not only live in fear of deportation, but also face an unequal educational opportunity to pursue higher education. For example, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year. However, fewer than 10 percent of these students are able to attend college—not due to a lack of desire for a college education, but due to an inability to afford college tuition or to meet legal residency status requirement of some colleges (Bruno, 2012).
Under current immigration law, undocumented students' residency status is solely determined by their parents' immigration status. If their parents are undocumented immigrants, students do not have a pathway to obtain legal residency status even though they may have lived most of their lives in the United States. As a result, undocumented students suffer from many psychosocial–educational problems, such as fear of deportation, depression, loneliness, uncertain future after high school, unemployment, ineligibility for federal and state financial aids, and ban from obtaining a driver's license (Educators for Fair Consideration, 2011). Consequently, these students tend to drop out of high school and are at risk of engaging in illegal activities because they often have little incentive to complete high school in light of an uncertain future.