For many immigrant high school students enrolled or qualified for DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Obama-era program that allows young adults to stay in the U.S. despite arriving here illegally as a child. The Common Application is a single online college application form accepted by over 900 U.S. colleges and is used by over 1,000,000 applicants each year. The Common App is used by U.S. and international college applicants and has questions regarding the applicant’s citizenship and immigration status.
• Submissions from undocumented students declined by 16% from 2016 to 2020.
• Over 300,000 students who started the Common App in the 2019-2020 admissions cycle but never submitted it skipped the citizenship question.
Starting in fall 2021, the Common Application will remove many questions about citizenship. undocumented immigrants and immigration status:
• altered questions about legal citizenship
• removed a prompt asking how long a student lived outside the country
• emphasized some sections are optional
• removed requests for their parents’ birth country
• remove information about their siblings
In addition, the Common App will provide students the opportunity to identify as DACA recipients.
About 2% of all college students are undocumented, according to the New American Economy and the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, and about half are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program:
“Undocumented students are present in post-secondary education despite the barriers,” said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance, a group of college leaders that advocate for immigrant education. “What more can we do if we lower the barriers?”
A federal judge ordered the government to reopen DACA in November, and this summer the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from ending DACA.
Learn More:
Chicago DACA Attorney
Do you want to apply for DACA protection?
An experienced DACA lawyer can explain the new policy developments around U.S. immigration laws and how they might affect your and your family’s situation. Knowledge of the legal system is a powerful tool to protect people from deportation. To discuss your situation, call 630-912-0322 to schedule a consultation with one of our experienced DACA attorneys today.
Godoy Law Office serves the entire Chicago, Illinois area including DuPage, Cook, Kane, Will, and Lake Counties.
Immigration Attorney Mario Godoy has years of experience guiding clients with immigration issues through the immigration process along with guiding clients through the criminal case. Godoy focuses on family-based immigration law, business immigration law, removal defense, and criminal defense representation of immigrants. A criminal charge or conviction can be devastating to your immigration case. With over a decade of immigration law experience and memories of family members who were deported due to bad legal advice, Godoy is committed to helping other immigrant families receive the legal justice they deserve. As a legal entrepreneur who practices immigration law, criminal law, estate and probate law, and running two successful law firms, Mario Godoy understands the importance of keeping families together and making a home and future in America.
