There’s a lot of talk about DACA students, as the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which protects immigrants who came to the United States as children from deportation. But there’s little conversation about university instructors and staff with DACA status, wrestling with the same uncertainty.
DACA recipients – like Gabriel Hernández Acosta, an admissions counselor at Mount Mercy University – have built their careers in higher education, only to risk losing them if the program is eliminated, as President Donald J. Trump attempted in 2017. Hernández Acosta’s DACA status is what allows him to work in the U.S. Now he fears for his job – and his students – as the fate of DACA remains in flux.
“No matter how much I’m needed or wanted in this position, there’s no certainty,” he said. “It’s the uncertainty that kills me.”
Hernández Acosta was drawn to working in higher education in part because of his DACA status. When he was a DACA student, he didn’t have counselors who had been in his position, so working with DACA students like him, “brings a little smile to my face,” he said. He likes “helping them open some doors that I didn’t even know were available for me.”
As a DACA recipient himself, he understands how hard it is for DACA students to pay for college without federal financial aid, how stressful it can be to apply for DACA status renewal. He said that his DACA status brings an extra level of expertise to his work. But as higher education professionals with DACA status, “we sometimes forget to think about ourselves,” he added. His students are a top priority.
Hernández Acosta isn’t alone. While there isn’t data available on how many DACA recipients work at colleges and universities, a Migration Policy Institute study found that about 8,800 work in education as a whole.
DACA recipient Flavio Guzman Magaña – program assistant for the University of Southern California Dornsife Office for Diversity and Strategic Initiatives and program coordinator for Trojan Guardian Scholars – noted that it’s easier for campuses to talk about DACA students because universities are less likely to face backlash.
