Illegal immigrant students in California are actualizing their dreams this summer.
The UCLA Labor Center’s Dream Resource Center is allowing undocumented students to apply for Dream Summer, a ten-week summer program that provides paid internship opportunities for immigrants in California, regardless of their immigration or insurance status. The program will encourage them to advocate for immigration reform and promote universal health care access regardless of immigration status.
The Center says the program began in 2011 after the U.S. Senate failed to pass the DREAM Act in 2010, which would have given a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants who came to the United states before the age of 16. The program claims to have provided 418 internship opportunities to immigrant youth throughout the nation.
UCLA is among the growing number of University of California schools, including UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, to provide academic scholarships and opportunities exclusively for illegal immigrants, some of whom move on to become active spokesmen for immigration reform.
The US Census Bureau reports that as of July 1, 2014, Hispanics were the predominant ethnic population of California’s roughly 14.99 million residents. An estimated 68 percent of the state’s undocumented population is Mexican-born.
Seth Ronquillo, a spokesman for the Dream Resource Center, told the Daily Bruin, “Many of the participants in the program go on to become the leaders of the immigration reform movement. By working in social justice organizations, they are given the resources they need to continue in activism.”
Read MoreSo Americans need not apply UCLA? I bet there are alot of other minorities that could use a internship to help them get good jobs.