Fullerton College’s Grads To Be program hosted its first ever undocumented student resource fair in honor of Undocumented Students Week of Action on Tue Oct.16 on the Fullerton College campus quad.
The fair was one of the many events the Grads To Be program will be hosting this week, which includes a variety of workshops, webinars, and presentations. This week will end with a movie night showing the documentary, “No Le Digas a Nadie”.
Grads To Be mentor, Deisy Kim, hopes this fair will help all students learn the many resources that are available for undocumented students. Resources that include legal rights, student programs and school admissions help.
“This is a great, I did not know there were these resources for undocumented students,” said student Laura Sanchez. “I picked up information papers to pass along to my friends who are undocumented.”
The program’s primary focus is to help enhance the students overall experiences and help them reach their educational goals.
The fair consisted of a variety of booths such as the admissions and records office, represented by Sammy Munoz, technician for admissions and records. She brought important information about the AB540, which is a waiver for undocumented students.
“It is a waiver for undocumented students or students who cannot establish residency,” said Munoz. “This waiver allows them to pay in-state tuition as opposed to the non-resident tuition due to their status.”
The booth consisted of flyers, contact information, and the actual pink AB540 forms to show students what they should look for when they want to apply for this waiver.
Another crucial booth at the fair was the legal rights booth. Students had to opportunity to speak with Yusra Khafagi, immigrants’ rights advocate, representing CAIR of the greater Los Angeles area chapter. CAIR is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the nation. They have multiple chapters throughout all of California.
“Today we are here to spread awareness of students [legal] rights,” said Khafagi. “We have a couple departments that we are really highlighting today.”
Those departments consist of the immigrants’ rights center, and the civil rights department. She also had information about voting policies.
The immigrants’ rights center, provides services at free or low cost and will help anyone who wants to apply for a green card or for citizenship, or naturalize. They are offering the application for citizenship free until the end of the year. The civil rights department will help anyone who is discriminated against, whether in the workplace, school, in any public setting or just blatant discrimination.
Khafagi passed out voter registration guides, which students can judge for themselves who they want to support or vote for any of the US representatives, State Assembly, or Senate members who are running for office, based on the bills they voted for or against. A brief description of what the bills stand for are also found on the voter guide for students to reference for information.
“CAIR is a non-imperialism organization, meaning we do not side with any particular party, and we have these guides so people are well informed as possible before the upcoming elections,” said Khafagi.
FC joined more than 40 community colleges across California to host Undocumented Students Week of Action starting Oct. 15 – Oct. 19. The week started yesterday afternoon with a ceremony in front of Fullerton College library, speakers included President Greg Schulz, Assemblywomen Sharon Quirk Silva, Consul of Mexico of Orange County Mario Cuevas, Sociology professor Mohammad Abdel Haq, FC United Co-President Alma Nalley and Grads to be coordinator/counselor Sylvia.
The next event will be held Wed Oct. 17 at 12:15 p.m. in room 520 for a “Know Your Legal Rights” webinar.
