Counselors as Leaders Who Advocate for Undocumented Students’ Education

Misconceptions About Undocumented Immigrants

Like other minoritized populations, society is rife with misconceptions about the undocumented immigrant population in the United States. President Trump has made awful, sweeping generalizations about the undocumented population as a threat to national security and dangerous criminals who rape and push drugs (Bump, 2015; Gabbitt, 2016). Undocumented immigrants are subject to racial stereotypes and notions that they are “invading” the United States (Chavez, 2008, p. 26) Mexican undocumented immigrants in particular are unfairly singled out in these discourses even though undocumented immigration from Mexico has fallen since 2008 (Gonzalez-Barrera, 2015; Passel, Cohn, Krogstad, & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2014). Politicians characterize the U.S.–Mexico border as porous, calling to fortify the wall between the United States and Mexico to increase border security (Bustos & Ronayne, 2016; Department of Homeland Security, 2016; Diamond, 2016; Kurtzleben, 2015).

Political rhetoric does not match the data demographers present. The undocumented immigrant population has been stable since 2009, even decreasing slightly over time to 11.1 million persons (Krogstad, Passel, & Cohn, 2016). Furthermore, the majority of the population has resided in the United States for a decade or longer (Krogstad et al., 2016). However, widespread and inaccurate generalizations feed into the debate over this populations’ contributions to U.S. society and “deservingness” of a pathway to citizenship. A 2015 survey from the Pew Research Center shows that the majority of the public believes undocumented immigrants should be permitted to stay in the country but is largely divided along political affiliation on whether undocumented immigrants are a burden or an asset (Goo, 2015). This is tied to a misconception that undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes and thus unfairly drain public resources from a pool to which they did not contribute (Berk & Shur, 2001). Yet, a 2016 report from the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy counters this position, finding that this population annually contributes almost US$12 billion to state and local governments (Gee, Gardner, & Wiehe, 2016).

Paradoxical to the conversation about undocumented immigrants’ contributions to the economy is the fact that this population has long been a source of labor for the U.S. workforce. Historic and modern U.S. foreign and domestic policies and programs (e.g., North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA], The Bracero Program) have promoted cycles of immigration to the U.S. for the purposes of economic advancement. Businesses and business owners have taken advantage of undocumented immigrants’ labor and talents while exploiting their vulnerable legal status (Chen & Park-Taylor, 2006; Massey, Durand, & Malone, 2002). While there has been public outcry at times that this population takes away job opportunities from U.S. citizens and legal residents, evidence does not support this assertion (Greenstone & Looney, 2012). In short, many immigrants come to the U. S. with hopes for employment, safety, and a better future. They make important cultural and material contributions to the country, bringing a wealth of linguistic, racial, cultural, religious, and other forms of diversity (Gándara & Hopkins, 2010). However, misconceptions about this population persist and compound barriers to student educational attainment.

Undocumented Students in U.S. Schools: Hurdles to Educational Attainment

Undocumented students are caught up in the national, state, and local contexts for immigration policy and policy enforcement, and they are affected by divisive attitudes and stigma around immigration status (Gonzales, 2011). Currently, nearly 5.5 million children live in a household with an undocumented parent, and a million of these children are undocumented (Passel & Taylor, 2010). Specific to K-12 schooling, approximately 1.4% of students in primary and secondary schools are undocumented (Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends, 2014). Seven percent of K-12 students nationwide have at least one undocumented parent (Krogstad & Passel, 2015; Zong & Batalova, 2015), though the numbers climb to nearly 13% in some states like Texas (Krogstad & Passel, 2015).

While undocumented students have legal protection for K-12 schooling due to Plyler (1982) and civil rights law (U.S. Department of Education, 2015), many undocumented children struggle to complete secondary education. Few graduate high school (Pérez et al., 2009). Scholars and demographers continue to assert that only 65,000 unauthorized students graduate high school yearly (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Low graduation rates may be traced to limited access to social services (Passel & Cohn, 2009), concerns about immigration enforcement, feelings of stigma about being unauthorized, discrimination and struggles associated with low socioeconomic status (Ayón, 2015; Gonzales, 2011). Students are highly probable to drop out (Abrego, 2006). Each issue alone can shape undocumented students’ ability and desires to connect with schools and personnel, even while schooling is one of the only viable routes they have to enhance their skills, talents, and opportunities for social mobility.

Author Positionality

Researcher 1 is employed at a research-intensive university in the Midwest. As a White, female professor, writing exercises helped her reflect on her positionality and the educational, policy, and ethnic/racial advantages she has experienced. She used writing exercises to reflect on her views of the political climate around undocumented immigration, education policy, and the ethics of human rights to a P-20 education. Researcher 2 is a graduate student who has served as a director of a not-for-profit literacy-based program for underserved students. He also identifies as an immigrant as he migrated with his family from Mexico to the U. S. as an undocumented child in search of a better education. This journey informs his practice as an educator and professional. Researcher 3 is a former public school teacher, counselor, and school principal who worked on the U.S.–Mexico border. These experiences and knowledge of practitioners’ realities continue to shape his teaching and research in the professoriate.

Sensing Marginalization: Counselor Using “La Facultad”

The first theme revealed how counselors questioned and saw hidden, hegemonic “norms” and structures (e.g., policies) converged to affect undocumented students’ and families’ social relationships and positioning, power, and opportunities. They were motivated to advocate for students as they perceived that immigrant families were susceptible to exploitation, live in precarious socioeconomic, legal and political circumstances, and are vulnerable to discrimination by school authorities. Counselors in the focus group discussed a variety of ways undocumented families are exploited based on their legal status. The examples included landlords and other authority figures (e.g., city officials) ignoring families’ urgent needs, including dangerous housing situations. Ximena, with 7 years’ counseling experience, commented,

[The family was] living in an apartment that had mice and it was—the ceiling was falling. The landlord didn’t do anything. I called the city. The city, I don’t even know if they ever went to inspect it. I called, and they said, “Well, we don’t have any record that you called.” I’m like, “What do you mean you don’t have a record? We filed that complaint about a week ago. I’m following up on it.” It’s like these people don’t matter, just because they weren’t born here.

Ximena expressed the long-delayed response of the landlord and the city were distinctly taking advantage of a family’s undocumented status by not rectifying an alarming housing situation. While there are other plausible explanations for the inaction, she quickly attributed the reason as a purposeful exploitation. Her comment suggests that Ximena had earlier experiences witnessing exploitation and intentional marginalization. Counselors recognized families’ differences in legal and political status and how community authorities enacted negligently toward them. Counselors critiqued the use of normative and structural power to create barriers for families and students.

Counselors stated that they had direct evidence of discrimination and were critical of its impact on students’ education and their right to equal, safe treatment. Ximena recalled,

. . . the teacher broke [a student’s] arm . . . but the way the principal kind of just was very nonchalant about the whole situation . . . [the student] had to be restrained, and I understand they all go through training to properly restrain a student, but from restraining and breaking an arm, I think that was a little excessive. He had to have surgery. He actually had surgery, and he had to have follow ups, which he hasn’t gone, because of the fact that he doesn’t have Medicaid or anything. She [the mother] says she had gone to the district to file a formal complaint. She hasn’t gotten any answers back, but if this had happened elsewhere with a family that’s not—that is not low socioeconomic, we would have—this would have probably erupted in the news and what not.

Ximena’s account indicated that a school leader and school officials were complicit in the excessively rough maltreatment of an undocumented student ¹ and turned a blind eye to it. She witnessed how legal status and low socioeconomic status could be used by personnel to discriminate against students and families. She expressed that personnel could willfully ignore formal processes meant to provide students and families protection and voice in the education system, and repercussions might not follow.

Jorge and Clara, with 11 and 21 years’ professional experience in counseling and family intervention services respectively, also observed legal status and socioeconomic status intersecting, saying,

The missing cell phone was symbolic of instability in families’ lives, and this example of social, financial, and legal structures producing instabilities resulted in school personnel’s difficulty to communicate reliably, evenly, and effectively with all families. Counselor Paz emphasized the importance of being aware and sensitive to students’ living situations, demonstrating la facultad, and empathetic altruism. She sensed students’ marginalization on the borderlands, speaking to students’ separation from families and living in limbo while trying to get an education. Paz stated,

If they’re living here— and I don’t know the full rules, but it’s my understanding that if the student is living, let’s say, with a guardian . . . They go through the district and it’s like, “Okay, this is not my parent, but this is the person who’s assuming responsibility for me while I’m here.” They’re usually the ones that come in; they register the student.

Jorge made a similar assessment, saying, “. . . usually a lot of their families have a home over there [in Mexico] and they have a home over here [in Texas]. An apartment here and maybe a small house over there or something.”

The physical border created psychological as well as physical divisions for students. Fluctuations in steady communication and housing situations reflected the circumstances contributing to families’ marginalization. Yet, counselors critiqued assumptions that families could or should live middle-class norms and questioned discriminatory practices. Counselors demonstrated the ability to observe the unobservable, perceiving the ways undocumented students can be marginalized. They had capacity in the use of la facultad, and it motivated them to action. This speaks to Anzaldúa’s (1987) concept of recognizing social relations as a form of power, or lack thereof, and how structures can be used to create borders to instill and perpetuate imbalances in “difference and power” (Giroux, 1992, p. 29). Counselors’ sense of students’ marginalization propelled an act of advocacy students, like when Ximena was motivated to act by her sense that the city was not responding to a vulnerable family in an intolerable living situation. It was through the ability to recognize forms of injustice toward students where empathetic altruism (advocacy) is engendered (Batson, 1991; Batson & Ahmad, 2001).

Confronting Discrimination and Supporting Survival Activities

A boundary spanning and border crossing perspective was also enacted in counselors’ advocacy leadership by counteracting policies and practices they viewed as unjust. One way they demonstrated advocacy leadership was in taking risks to speak against discrimination and marginalization, even if they feared reprisal. They also supported activities critical to families’ survival in response to concerns that other district personnel were devaluing undocumented students.

Some counselors intentionally readied themselves for conflict with people in higher positions in the system hierarchy. Deborah, who had been employed in the district for over four decades, remarked,

There is danger in defending those without power. Yet, the school counselors declare their position for the families and children. Many times I’ve—and especially now that I’m on the other side of the thing [an incident], where I’ve had to, as an advocate, actually go nose to nose with people above me and say, “No, this isn’t what’s going to happen.”

She was prepared to directly confront administrators, despite the perception she risked job security. Focus group participants said,

Per Deborah, the counselors’ ethos was prioritizing student and family well-being when others refused to do so. They recognized that the system created unjust power dynamics that disadvantaged undocumented families. Yet, counselors pressed forward to speak out even when they knew they could face repercussions for their actions in breaking official policy or challenging district authority figures.

Counselors crossed borders and entered into uncomfortable spaces to stand in solidarity with undocumented students, spanning boundaries for them as counselors were “flexible organizational navigators” (Miller, 2009, p. 619). Their advocacy leadership was motivated by seeing a need to fight for denied educational opportunities for undocumented students and by witnessing discrimination against them. As Ximena stated, “They’re human, and they deserve the same education as somebody from [the other side of the city] deserves.” The counselor protested this lack of support and denial of students’ material realities. Their knowledge of these realities motivated them. Fighting discrimination was necessary to ensure equal educational access. They also advocated to make sure students could get by on a day-to-day basis by supporting activities that helped students and families survive.

Participants stressed that they were first and foremost educators, not immigration authorities. Counselors’ role was to assist and build relationships and trust. Jorge said that he and Clara scripted their conversations with families where documentation status might erect a barrier. Jorge remarked,

We always tell—and I’m sure Clara is the same. We’ll let them know, we’re here to educate the child. We’re not immigration or anything like that. It’s just not our place. Sometimes we tell them, “Don’t give us too much information. We need to know the basics.”

Counselors emphasized to families that they would not use legal status to treat them differently or disadvantage them. Instead, counselors used their conversations to protect families and help them protect themselves by suggesting boundaries around sharing sensitive information.

The sharing of information and knowledge intended to support families’ activities and spanning boundaries as information brokers. Counselors also supported survival activities and advocated for them by assisting parents in learning to navigate different systems. Deborah talked about knowledge sharing, saying,

. . . being an advocate, and being able to run the ropes of things better than [parents] . . . the parents many times don’t want to—they just want, “Whatever you say . . .” I say “No, no, you’ve got to come and work with us.” No, no. But I find that if I then can help them, just okay, “Here, now we’re going to talk to this person. Here’s the phone, you’re going to say this.” We just go through. Just things that I grew up knowing that they don’t necessarily know.

Deborah also engaged in knowledge sharing when she spoke of families fleeing violence in Mexico and being unsure where to turn for help. She noted,

[Families would say] “We had to leave” and, “Yeah, they were shooting at us,” so then [I would say] “You are homeless. That’s considered homeless,” and that’s when they’ll come back with—and that’s another thing the counselors have to do is advocate. Tell them what our legal system is. They don’t necessarily come here knowing to go to legal aid or to wherever it is. You have to kind of hook them up with people.

Deborah’s leadership advocacy was expressed through educating families and networking on their behalf. Similarly, other counselors discussed assisting students and their families by providing supports that otherwise would not have been available. Paz recalled,

I remember him telling me that he needed help with transportation and he knows that—“I know it’s not your job” all in Spanish. He said, “I need help. Can you help me?” And I’m, like, okay. Why don’t you put him in contact with somebody . . . because [school] . . . they’re all over the city, they bus kids. My school only can bus [a certain area]. So I’m, like, if we can get somebody there who says you can go with the bus—I don’t know how the person did it from [my school] but she gave him a bus card. I don’t know if it was breaking the rule. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. But he had a bus card and now he can come to school; has transportation.

Counselors’ advocacy also encouraged the development of “la facultad” in families. They sought not only to change structures but also to raise families’ own conscientiousness of the organizational structures and policies that affected their lives and ability to make it in U.S. society. The seemingly small actions they took, such as securing transportation for students even if it potentially went against a district policy, were critical to enabling students to attend school.

Securing Access to Relationships, Resources, and Confidences

Assisting students in overcoming sociopolitical hurdles required counselors to work inside and outside the school system, spanning boundaries. Inside schools, counselors had access to administrators and would confer with them to help students take care of basic needs. The counselor focus group spoke about students who commuted over the U.S.–Mexico border needing access to facilities like showers to get ready for the school day or to bathe:

When asked how she got access to the facilities in the early morning hours, Deborah replied, “I talked to the principal,” who permitted students’ access. This is an example of counselors utilizing the relationships they had through their professional capacity, and how they spanned boundaries to act as border crossers for students. Counselors also drew on relationships with community members to secure external resources for students. Jorge and Clara related the importance of networking with communities:

Counselors would draw on their community connections to gain assistance for families while ensuring sensitivity to the recipients. Furthermore, when others in the school system were unable or unwilling to assist, counselors filled the vacuum. The focus group discussed stepping in to show undocumented students how to access scholarship money:

Counselors perceived that students were shut out of learning about financial aid opportunities based on assumptions that students’ legal status would prevent them from accessing aid. Subsequently, counselors took responsibility to help students through the application process. Serena stepped in, saying, “I would just help them individually. I’d have to, because they didn’t know how to fill it out. It’s overwhelming. It’s a lot of information, so I would help them individually.” Counselors helped remove gaps in student knowledge about accessing resources that are critical to them continuing their education while maintaining students’ trust. This was evidence of their efforts at boundary spanning in acting as knowledge brokers.

Participants engaged in advocacy work individually and collectively, and they also utilized district programs and initiatives to bridge relationships with families and show sensitivity to the economic contexts in which undocumented families live. Lorena remarked,

Our [name] program . . . has a migrant program and they help the students a lot. They give them a lot of support, like, to take tests for free. They don’t charge them. They reward them. Like our students last year went to dinner for [inaudible], our migrant students and they pay for all of that.

Jorge also remarked on having programs and initiatives in place to support students, saying,

So, the most rewarding thing for me is to see those programs and those initiatives continue—those things continue and really make a difference within just the whole school community, because my point of view on that or the way I need to look at it is . . . very holistic.