Vacaville leaders mingle at Chamber breakfast – The Reporter

By Nick Sestanovich

Everybody who is anybody in Vacaville was at the Opera House Wednesday morning for the Vacaville Chamber of Commerce’s Movers & Shakers Breakfast Summit.

Some of Vacaville’s top community and business leaders got to mingle while learning about the city’s highlights last year and enjoying a breakfast provided by Erica Marie’s Catering.

The guest list included Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Solano; Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Solano; Solano County supervisors Skip Thomson and John Vasquez; Mayor Ron Rowlett; the Vacaville City Council; the Vacaville school board; Solano Community College (SCC) President Celia Esposito-Noy; and Lisette Estrella-Henderson, the superintendent of the Solano County Office of Education. All of these figures were listed in the brochure as “movers.”

Source: Vacaville leaders mingle at Chamber breakfast – The Reporter

California Governor Signs Health for All Kids Bill – New America Media

By Viji Sundaram

In May 2016, California will become the fifth state to allow undocumented children from low-income families to enroll in comprehensive health care.

Gov. Brown signed legislation Friday that will allow 170,000 undocumented children to smoothly transition from restricted scope Emergency Medi-Cal (the state’s name for Medicaid) to full-scope coverage, by removing barriers to re-applying or re-enrolling. It will also let children with severe and chronic illnesses stay in specialty care.

Once undocumented children enroll in comprehensive Medi-Cal, they will be able to take advantage of preventive services and not have to wait until a medical emergency to seek care.

via California Governor Signs Health for All Kids Bill – New America Media.

Jerry Brown approves loan program for undocumented students – The Sacramento Bee

By Alexei Koseff

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation creating a new loan program for undocumented students in California’s public universities.

Senate Bill 1210, by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, would make available $9.2 million for University of California and California State University campuses to administer loans to students who are in the country illegally. These students, who are ineligible for federal financial aid and most private loans, often face a gap in funding their education – an estimated $5,000 to $6,000 at UC and $3,000 at CSU, according to Lara’s office.

via Jerry Brown approves loan program for undocumented students – Capitol Alert – The Sacramento Bee.

Don’t let border debate impact successful programs already in place – The Reporter

Vacaville Reporter Posted:

Immigration is a huge hot button issue in an election year, but the debate over how to handle the influx of youth to our borders from Central America should not be allowed to become so politicized that it impacts important programs already in place to help young immigrants who are already here.

One fine example of such a program was featured in the page of The Reporter recently as we took an inside look a local migrant education programs.

While the debate rages on how to help youth at the border, migrant youngsters are finding educational help right here in Solano County and in communities across the state and nation thanks to a federal government program first approved in 1965.

Migrant education’s federal dollar

via Don’t let border debate impact successful programs already in place – The Reporter.

Education Week: Immigration Bill Would Help DREAMERs, Boost STEM

K-12 education overhaul may be on the back burner in Congress these days, but immigration reform sure isn’t. And there are obviously big implications in a new, widely anticipated bipartisan Senate bill for students who come to the United States as children without documentation and graduate from American high schools. (Many call themslves “DREAMers” after the DREAM act, versions of which would grant them citizenship.)

The bill creates an arguably long and bumpy path to citizenship for those without documentation who came to the country in 2011 or before. But folks who came to the nation as children could go a much speedier route, provided they pass a criminal background check, graduate from high school (or get a GED), and complete two years of post-secondary education, or spend four years in the military, or other uniformed services.

via Immigration Bill Would Help DREAMERs, Boost STEM.

EdSource Today: Transforming ‘deferred action’ for young immigrants into true opportunities

By 

President Obama’s announcement of a new immigration program, “deferred action for childhood arrivals” (DACA), last June makes 2013 a year of hope for undocumented immigrant youth and young adults in California. However, a key factor in determining whether their dreams become reality will be their ability to enroll in adult schools and community college programs.

Modeled on the DREAM Act, DACA provides undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children (before age 16), and who were less than 31 years old when the program was announced in 2012, relief from the threat of deportation. The program provides them work authorization, an opportunity to move out of the shadows of twilight employment into mainstream jobs. Nationally, deferred action can immediately benefit about 1.3 million immigrant youth and young adults who are 15 years of age or older. About 305,000 of them live in California, the nation’s largest immigrant state. As of Dec. 13, 2012, some 368,000 young people had applied for deferred action, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues to process applications quite rapidly and approve most.

via Transforming ‘deferred action’ for young immigrants into true opportunities – by Edward Kissam.

NPR News: New Policy For Young Immigrants Creates Paperwork Deluge

by

In the six months since a new law opened a path to temporary legal status for some young immigrants in the U.S., more than 300,000 people have applied — and have rushed to request qualifying documents from their schools.

The law, Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, offers legal status, renewable every two years, to people ages 30 and younger who were brought to the country as children. Applicants must prove they were in the U.S. for five consecutive years — something most easily achieved through school transcripts.

Crowds formed in San Diego when DACA-eligible families started arriving with transcript requests, says Bea Fernandez with the San Diego Unified School District.

via New Policy For Young Immigrants Creates Paperwork Deluge.

NPR News: Berkeley Receives $1M For Undocumented Students

by

The University of California, Berkeley is taking the DREAM Act a step further. On Tuesday, the school announced a $1 million scholarship fund specifically for undocumented students.

The fund will help students like Jesus Chavez, 21, a slight, shy college senior who was brought to this country illegally at the age of 3. Chavez was raised in an agricultural town in California’s Central Valley where he earned the grades and test scores to enroll at the highly competitive university.

“I fell in love at the environment, the atmosphere. In my mind I just pretty much told myself this is where I’m going to come,” Chavez says.

via Berkeley Receives $1M For Undocumented Students.

NPR News: For Undocumented Youth, New Policy Carries Risks

by Joel Rose

The U.S. government began accepting applications for “deferred action for childhood arrivals” Wednesday — a program designed to allow qualified young people to study and work in the U.S. openly.

On New York’s Lower East Side, a line stretched around the block. Hundreds of potential applicants had shown up for free legal advice. Inside the church basement, dozens waited for help filling out their paperwork.

Millions Expected To Apply

“Half of me is saying, ‘OK, it’s real,’ ” says Mubashar Ahmed, a college student studying chemical engineering. “The other one’s asking, ‘Is it real?’ Now seeing it is actually believing it. Like, looking at all these people signed up to do it, I’m like, OK, this works.”

via For Undocumented Youth, New Policy Carries Risks.

EdSource Today: Application available for undocumented youth

By Kathryn Baron

Tens of thousands of undocumented children and young adults, many living in California, are expected to start submitting applications to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in a bid to remain in the United States on a semi-legal status. DHS posted the form and regulations online yesterday morning, in preparation for today’s official launch of President Obama’s Deferred Action Program.

After many failed attempts by Congress to pass a DREAM Act, the President asked DHS to develop a policy for allowing some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to get a two-year deferral from the possibility of being deported to a country most of them don’t remember. Unlike the DREAM Act bills, this policy does not include a path to citizenship.

via Application available for undocumented youth – by Kathryn Baron.