In response to growing concerns over immigration policies and increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, Skyline College has started the Undocu-Ally Coalition to provide support for undocumented students on campus.
The coalition will serve as a space for faculty, classified professionals, and students to come together to share ideas and develop strategies that address the needs of undocumented students at Skyline, according to paralegal student Arthur Veloso.
Undocumented Community Center (UCC) Coordinator Diego Bautista said the coalition was formed by Luis Escobar, Skyline’s Acting Vice President of Student Services, who reached out to Chad Thompson, the director of SparkPoint, and Bautista himself to get the coalition started.
Veloso also said that this coalition has been started partially in response to executive orders by President Donald Trump that have targeted the undocumented immigrant community.
“The purpose of the coalition is to increase the support for this underrepresented community in face of the recent changes on immigration law,” Veloso said.
Building on this concern, Bautista said that the recent government actions and immigration raids have caused students to be afraid of coming to campus.
“I think — just with what’s been going on with the executive orders, ICE raids — students are not coming on campus, they’re just going to class and then going home,” Bautista said. “So I think there’s just a lot of fear in our community where students don’t feel safe.”
Veloso said that in his experiences working at the Undocumented Community Center he has had multiple conversations with students about their growing fear of coming to campus.
“So many of our students have told [staff at the Undocumented Community Center] that they are afraid to come to college, and often have been heavily thinking about dropping out from Skyline because of fear of having an ICE raid,” Veloso said.
In response to the fear and uncertainty expressed by many students, Bautista said that the coalition’s main priority has been to identify the unmet educational needs of undocumented students and to find ways to bridge those gaps. This includes helping students access financial aid opportunities and connecting them with additional resources beyond what’s available on campus.
Veloso said that the coalition’s goal is also to ensure undocumented students receive the same opportunities as their peers.
“The importance of this coalition is to increase the support of our Skyline College community to protect our undocumented students, because they are students in the same way as other citizens and permanent residents are,” Veloso said. “They share the same space, they study the same subjects, they share the same classroom, but they don’t have the same rights, so we need to have them to be fully included in this beautiful country that we call America.”
Expanding on the importance of inclusion and equal support for undocumented students, Veloso said he joined the coalition to share his personal experience as an immigrant student.
“I accepted their invitation to be part of the coalition to bring a perspective on how difficult it is to be an immigrant in America, especially a student immigrant here in which you have to overcome so many social issues to have a fraction of what my peers already have,” Veloso said.
Building on Veloso’s perspective, Bautista said it is important that the coalition incorporates students, noting that their experiences should guide how the coalition attempts to improve support systems and respond to their needs.
“I think student voice matters a lot,” Bautista said. “Because they’re the ones dealing with this [on a] day to day basis where their voice matters a lot, that we gotta want to get their input on how we could do better as a college and support them in their education.”