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At last month’s Arizona Board of Regents meeting, Oday Shahin from Arizona State University and Glen Grunberger and Daniela Maria from the University of Arizona urged the Regents to make an official statement on Senate Bill 1070.

Yet, the agenda for this month’s meeting indicates that the issue is not being taken up.  While some may not see how SB 1070 affects students, there are hundreds of students at ASU who navigate the institution without documentation, many of whom came to the United States as children with no consent of their own.

Erika Andiola, a recent ASU graduate, was one of those students.  Andiola’s family left Mexico when she was 11 years old to escape her father’s domestic violence.  While growing up in the U.S., Andiola watched her mother struggle to get by and sought out her teachers’ advice on how she could help.

As many of us have been encouraged while growing up, her teachers urged her to get an education, explaining that with a degree she would be able to help her family and have the career she desired.  However, Andiola did not realize this could not be a reality because of her documentation status.

It was in high school that she realized that she was undocumented.  Simple things, such as getting a driver’s license, were teenage events she could not participate in, and larger barriers came to fruition when she applied for college.

Because Andiola did not have a social security number, she was not eligible for state funding.  She managed to fund the first two years of college at ASU through five private scholarships and the Maroon and Gold Scholarship.  However, in 2007, Proposition 300 stripped Andiola of most of her scholarships and increased her tuition to out-of-state levels.

Despite living in one of the most anti-immigrant states, a past movement referred National Coming Out of the Shadows Week urged young undocumented individuals to recognize that they are unashamed and not criminals.

Despite all odds, she graduated last May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.  This event was not marked with excitement because of the lack of opportunity she, like many other undocumented students, would face.

While Erika Andiola is open about her struggles, there are still many who are scared to come out and risk their safety.

Thus, it is absolutely imperative that ABOR address SB 1070 on the local level to ensure that college campuses are a sanctuary for all students pursuing their college degree, regardless of documentation status.

Meanwhile, on the state and national level, our decision makers need to provide a pathway to citizenship dependent upon being in the country prior to age 16 and completing either two years of post-secondary education military service like  laws such as the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

At a press conference on the DREAM Act Tuesday, according to ASU President Michael Crow who has spoken out in support of the DREAM Act and against SB 1070, this is about a “doctrine of fairness [where] high achievement in children must be recognized regardless of political aspect.”

With this in mind, we must empower young people to contribute their talents and passion to the country they’ve grown up in, and we must leaving behind laws like SB 1070 that do nothing more than unnecessarily criminalize masses of people.

Society should extend opportunities to our youth who deserve it, and together we can continue to strive to be the best nation possible.


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