A Brief But Spectacular take on Dreamers pursuing higher education

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Karen Vallejos is the executive director of The DREAM Project, dedicated to supporting students whose immigration status may pose challenges to their academic aspirations.

  As a former undocumented student herself, Vallejos says she saw firsthand the barriers that prevent immigrant students from realizing their dreams.

  Tonight, she shares her Brief But Spectacular take on dreamers pursuing higher education.

• Karen Vallejos Corrales, Executive Director, The DREAM Project:

  I was 5 years old when my family moved from Bolivia to the United States.

  Even as a small child, I knew I was undocumented. I didn't really understand the ramifications of that. I knew that, because we were undocumented, we couldn't go back to Bolivia. That for me was the worst part of it. I missed my family. It wasn't until high school that I started to realize there was a lot of other ramifications for my status.

  Being undocumented in high school, you really start to feel it when everyone starts preparing for college. At that time, it was 2010. And in Virginia, there was no in-state tuition offered for undocumented students, which meant most tuitions from public schools were twice or three times as much.

  The DREAM Act was a legislative bill that offered a pathway to citizenship for individuals who were brought here as children. It was something that was introduced much earlier in 2000. By the time it was 2010 and I was in high school, it still had not passed. By then, I had become a very strong advocate, and I was actually on the Senate floor when the DREAM Act was being voted on.

• Woman:

  Motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate Amendment No. 3 to H.R.5281, DREAM Act, signed by 16 senators.

• Karen Vallejos Corrales:

  Other dreamers had come from Texas, from California, from states all across the country, I think. So it was just this massive group of mostly college-age students. Even though we were strangers, everyone was holding hands, and people were counting and kind of whispering and saying, that's 15 votes, that's 35 votes.

• Woman:

  Mr. McCain, no. Mr. Inhofe, no. Mr. Cochran, no.

• Karen Vallejos Corrales:

  As we kept going, it became very apparent that it was just not going to pass.

• Man:

  The motion is not agreed to.

• Karen Vallejos Corrales:

  We were in shock. There's not going to be any legislative relief, and we need to figure out what we're going to do next.

  It was in that moment that we started really talking about what we could do. Eventually, we, with the support of our families, ended up starting The DREAM Project, which is the nonprofit I am now an executive director of.

  We thought that we could start a program that would help offer scholarships. For students, that was the most immediate need. Our parents would do bake sales, dinners for fund-raisers. That first year, The DREAM Project was able to raise enough money and give out four scholarships to high school seniors.

  Since my own graduation, the organization had grown a lot. It was giving out 100 scholarships. It had a formal mentoring program. We even have students now pursuing their Ph.D.s, their master's programs, med school, law school, and you just see the value that giving them a chance when they're young can really bring them.

  Access to education is important because education is really a great equalizer. Young Americans are headed to college this fall, and thousands will be undocumented. The students we work with all have amazing academic backgrounds, are incredibly involved in their school communities. They're an asset to the American community.

  My name is Karen Vallejos Corrales, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on dreamers pursuing higher education.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And you can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos online at PBS.org/NewsHour.