{"id":450546,"date":"2024-12-12T05:32:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T13:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=450546"},"modified":"2024-12-12T16:15:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T00:15:34","slug":"fafsa-undocumented-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_es\/education\/higher-education\/2024\/12\/fafsa-undocumented-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Will filling out student aid form target undocumented parents for Trump’s mass deportations?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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En resumen<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

National and California experts say Trump’s mass deportation plans make filling out the federal financial aid application for college a risk to students with undocumented parents. California’s own application has more safeguards.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

Lea esta historia en Espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incoming president Donald Trump has vowed to deport all of the country\u2019s undocumented residents<\/a>.

For students who are eyeing college, his presidency represents a potentially brutal Sophie\u2019s Choice if they have undocumented parents: Risk exposing them to a possible immigration dragnet by completing the federal Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, or leave thousands of dollars in cash for school on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While researchers and advocates have yet to hear anything concrete from Trump representatives about using financial aid data to target undocumented residents, they know families are afraid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFront line staff that work directly with students are reporting that students and parents are asking them if the FAFSA is safe\u201d given Trump\u2019s campaign promises of mass deportation, said Marcos Montes, policy director for Southern California College Attainment Network, a coalition of nonprofits that help students apply for college admission and financial aid.

The National College Attainment Network said those fears are justified. It \u201ccannot assure mixed-status students and families that data submitted to the US Department of Education, as part of the FAFSA process, will continue to be protected,\u201d a message on its website <\/a>read late last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fear is exacerbated by Trump\u2019s claims Sunday to NBC News<\/a> that the only way to deport undocumented parents whose children are citizens is to have the whole family leave. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be breaking up families,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSo the only way you don\u2019t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.\u201d How Trump can force out citizens, including those with parents not born in the U.S., is unclear; experts say ending birthright citizenship would violate the U.S Constitution<\/a>.

An estimated 3.3 million Californians live in mixed-status households<\/a>, including 1 in 5 children under 18, according to data from Equity Research Institute, a USC research group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A California workaround<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Experts say California students eligible for financial aid can minimize the possible harm to their undocumented parents. Unlike the FAFSA, the state aid application is not shared with federal agencies. That policy is among the various protections<\/a> in place under California\u2019s so-called \u201csanctuary\u201d laws that limit<\/a> the use of state resources to help federal immigration enforcement<\/a>. Several legal experts told CalMatters the Trump administration would have to clear a high legal bar to gain access to those state records and that court cases have put restrictions on how wide a net immigration enforcement agencies can cast in their search for data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the deadline for state financial aid is in March \u2014 though there are plans to move it to April \u2014 and the federal deadline is much later<\/a>, Californians attending college here should complete the state application first, said Montes. Then they should wait to see if the Trump administration will break precedent and begin using the federal financial aid data for immigration enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 An estimated 3.3 million Californians live in mixed-status households, including 1 in 5 children under 18. <\/p>Equity Research Institute<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That strategy is also endorsed by Madeleine Villanueva, the interim higher education director at Immigrants Rising, a California-based advocacy and research group focused on undocumented residents. She stressed that there\u2019s a bevy of analysts and immigrant rights advocates who\u2019ll be watching for updates from the Trump administration.

\u201cUnfortunately, we can’t say what’s going to happen federally,\u201d she said. But the California state aid application, known as the California Dream Act Application, is an \u201cextra layer of safety when it comes to applying for financial aid.\u201d

The California Student Aid Commission, an agency with the sole goal of getting students more money, suggests students may need to forgo federal aid given the risks to their families. The agency, which runs the state\u2019s financial aid programs, wrote in a memo last month<\/a> that completing just the state aid application is a \u201cviable option\u201d for students in mixed-status homes who have \u201cfears of adverse action by federal immigration enforcement.\u201d

However, taking a wait-and-see approach with federal aid means California campuses won\u2019t have a full picture of how much aid a student is likely to get when they send out financial aid estimates to admitted students in the spring. The University of California\u2019s central office worries that students may not complete the FAFSA and lose out on aid. Both UC and the California State University indicated to CalMatters they\u2019ll process either form students submit and will work with students who file their federal applications later.

Acerca de 400,000 Californians receive the Cal Grant<\/a>, which waives tuition at the public universities and partially at private colleges. That grant plus the state\u2019s Beca de clase media<\/a> can add up to more than $17,000 in aid in one year. The state aid application ensures students fearful of the federal application can still receive the state support for which they\u2019re eligible.

The University of California\u2019s undergraduate student government is also on edge about FAFSA. The lack of a firm firewall \u201ccould put certain students at risk,\u201d said Saanvi Arora, external vice president for UC Berkeley\u2019s student government and a board member for the systemwide student government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the FAFSA risk<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Students who are citizens and permanent residents<\/a> are eligible for up to $7,400 in Pell grants and access to federal loans that come with repayment protections that are often stronger than what the private sector offers. To receive this aid, students who live with their parents need them to fill out portions of the federal aid application. More recently, parents without Social Security numbers<\/a> have been asked to indicate they lack one and then must answer a set of questions about their identity.

The U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the country\u2019s immigration enforcement, have a regularly renewed agreement limiting the use of a student\u2019s personal information<\/a>. Because students need to be citizens or permanent residents to get financial aid, a signed agreement between the two departments states that students\u2019 information they submit for FAFSA will be matched against an eligible immigration list called SAVE<\/a>. It\u2019s one that hundreds of state, local and federal agencies use to determine whether an individual is eligible for federal benefits. Neither SAVE nor the agency that operates it, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, are used for immigration enforcement purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conceptually, it\u2019s not hard to use that federal financial aid data for enforcement purposes, according to experts who spoke with CalMatters. However, doing so would be a major break from current protocol. 

Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Education \u201chas not provided and will not provide information gathered through FAFSA to any federal immigration-related agency for law enforcement activities,\u201d wrote in an email James Kvaal, who holds the number two spot at the U.S. Department of Education and is the top higher education officer in the federal government. However, he wrote, \u201cstudents and their families should make the decisions that are right for them.\u201d

That does not \u201csound like a robust encouragement to go ahead and fill out the FAFSA,\u201d said Bob Shireman, who was a senior higher education official in the education department during the Obama administration.

The agreement between the departments \u201cis not much of a firewall, it is more like a picket fence,\u201d Shireman said in an interview. The agreement can be changed in a matter of months, he said, \u201cso if the next administration wants to use education department records to identify people who may have an immigration status that could subject them to deportation, I don’t see anything preventing that from happening.\u201d

Federal laws limit the data sharing that can occur between the U.S. Department of Education and law enforcement agencies, said Shelveen Ratnam, a spokesperson for the California Student Aid Commission. Ratnam said that current law \u201cstrictly prohibits\u201d agencies in possession of personally identifiable information, like parental data, from releasing that information, with few exceptions. Some other laws and policies also apply and the gist is that an agency can only use the personal information of others in ways that support the mission of that federal agency.

But if the U.S. Department of Education gets subpoenaed for information, the department\u2019s \u201cresponses and likelihood of challenging the demand for information are unknown,\u201d according to Ratnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even analysts who say using parental FAFSA information is an inefficient way to find possible undocumented parents urge caution. They say it\u2019s not out of the question that a Trump administration could try to make use of that data for immigration enforcement purposes.

While \u201cit’s sort of methodologically flawed as a way to identify individuals,\u201d said Corinne Kentor, an immigration and higher education researcher<\/a>, \u201cthat doesn’t mean that it won’t be attempted. But I think it is probably harder and more work than other avenues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California Dream Act Application is safer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The California Dream Act Application has more protections than the federal application. Though originally designed to allow undocumented students who are California residents to apply for state college benefits, the application in 2024 was modified to permit any student who ran into problems with the federal application to at least apply for state grants. The change stemmed from colossal data issues with the federal application this year that prevented students with parents without Social Security numbers<\/a> from completing the FAFSA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De acuerdo a un 1988 federal appeals court decision<\/a>, \u201cthe government can\u2019t enforce a subpoena that is just \u2018fishing\u2019 for data about undocumented people,\u201d said Ahilan Arulanantham, a scholar on immigration law at UCLA. That\u2019s in contrast to \u201ctrying to gather information on a particular individual that the government has reason to suspect is here in violation of the immigration laws.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arulanantham also said that a federal agency asking California’s financial aid agency to search databases for undocumented students could run afoul of the 10th Amendment.

Finally, the state\u2019s financial aid agency could challenge a judicial order or subpoena that seeks student records on the grounds that it\u2019s not specific enough and violates the Fourth Amendment\u2019s protections against unreasonable search and seizure, Ratnam said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now what does all this mean for students with undocumented parents who already submitted FAFSA information last year? Their information is already in government systems. Should they continue to file their FAFSA? Experts had few answers. They said that\u2019s a decision that only families can decide together given the varying protections available.

Arora, the UC student government member, is sympathetic to those households. It\u2019s \u201cabsolutely a tough question,\u201d she said. That\u2019s one reason she wants UC officials to bolster existing immigration legal aid services, such as bringing in more lawyers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s one answer she has to her own question: \u201cHow do we mitigate retribution that’s likely to happen against those students?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\tLeer m\u00e1s<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t
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Los estudiantes entran en p\u00e1nico despu\u00e9s de que una nueva solicitud de ayuda financiera los bloquee: 'No s\u00e9 a qui\u00e9n llamar'<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"California\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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California extiende el plazo de ayuda financiera para estudiantes<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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