Undocufriendly ≠ undocuserving: Undocumented college students’ perceptions of institutional support.

Abstract

Undocufriendly colleges and universities have a reputation for welcoming undocumented students and offering a more inclusive campus climate via their institutional policies, services, and practices. These campuses are perceived to positively influence undocumented students’ college choice and experiences once they enroll in higher education. Most undocufriendly institutions are in states with tuition equity policies, which allow undocumented students to pay in-state resident tuition fees. Theoretically, the combination of these policies and inclusive institutional practices should offer undocumented students an undocufriendly campus environment that promotes their college success. In this article, we discuss the findings of a qualitative study that examined the extent to which an undocufriendly campus setting was fostering undocumented students’ success and meeting their needs. Through a participatory action research methodology and counterstorytelling approach, we investigated undocumented students’ perceptions of institutional support at the public research university in Virginia that was largely perceived to be the most undocufriendly campus within the Commonwealth.

Institutional agents’ perspectives of institutional support for undocumented and DACA community college students

“…Salazar and colleagues' (2022) work reminds higher education leaders that just because an institution has the reputation of being an undocufriendly campus does not mean that undocumented and DACA students are being served. Institutional agents are instrumental in creating undocuserving campus environments, but having awareness and knowledge about resources and support on campus is not enough.…”

“…Students at private colleges were more likely to desire their institution to publicly endorse undocumented students (33%) compared to students at community colleges (24%) and public colleges (22%). Salazar and colleagues (2022) used this model to examine one institution that was perceived asundocufriendly by having in‐state tuition policies and ample support services for undocumented and DACA students but fell short by not having adequate leadership support from administrators, and lacking financial and mental health resources for students. In short, undocufriendly does not produce an undocuserving outcome (Salazar et al, 2022).…”

The (un)embraced: The experiences of Black undocumented students on college campuses.

“…This study confirms previous findings with regard to the invisibility experienced by non-Latinx undocumented students (Chan, 2010;Hall, 2022;Meitzenheimer, 2020;Palmer, 2017;Patler, 2014Patler, , 2018Salinas Velasco et al, 2015) and supports the notion that having an undocufriendly campus reputation does not necessarily translate into meeting the needs of undocumented students and serving them. Being responsive to one student population (e.g., Latinx and DACA) while systematically disregarding another (e.g., Black and DACA-ineligible) does not fulfill the premise of undocuservingness (Salazar et al, 2022) or undocureadiness (Castrello ´n, 2021). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

UndocuCare: Strategies for mental health services that affirm undocumented college students’ psychological needs

“…A place to start is by self‐assessing policies and practices in the unit, office, department, or center where the services are provided. This assessment could be implemented with an lens of undocufriendly policies and practices that facilitate the buffering of negative contextual factors (e.g., anti‐immigrant policies) in order to promote educational outcomes and psychological health (Cadenas et al., 2022; Salazar et al., 2022). See Table 1 for a list of suggested initial questions.…”